I planted 25, of which six remain. Critters took a toll in the rest. I plant them just for looks and because they make the neighbor kids happy.
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Still focused on harvests …
Some toms from a couple of days ago. Some of these are big - no scale but that little darker one towards the top left is about 1" in diameter. Some of these were from grafted plants, but some were last year’s saved seed (the ribbed Marmande, for example)
And this is a Marmande - and I’ve had 3 or 4 just like this - and if you look very closely at the centre of the tom you can see daylight. It’s like it grew with a hole in the middle like a doughnut. Weird.
(One pic from the top and one from the bottom.)
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Grapes!
Ready to be picked so I’ll try to do that this weekend. The squirrels and birds have already started to eat their fill. I have a 100+ year old wine press that I’ve been waiting to put to use!
ETA: those rascally racoons are feasting on my grapes!
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I ended up pulling out all of the amaranth before it set seeds since nothing I could do would dissuade the bugs.
The Tithonia that I planted with it is doing fine though.
As are the other sunflowers.
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you don’t eat the amaranth leaves?
mum and i have been growing the red leaf variety for greens and those leaves are superfantastic cooked into a pot of curry lentils!
we don’t grow them for seed grain like we did back in texass, where we had acres of garden space, no. we like amaranth as leafy greens in salad, stir fry and pickled.
versatile plant, amaranth.
edit: they do spread like the weeds they are. they will spill out and pop up all over in just a couple of seasons!
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damn.
that truly sucks. different “bug zones”, i suppose. we planted a patch 3 years ago and still get bunches of volunteers. even the snails leave them alone.
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Not sure what you can do about that!
A couple of my neighbours at our allotments have grape vines (red) and the worst they get is gangs of starlings descending on the grapes one they are sweet enough. Netting does the trick.
I hope you get enough of a crop to do something with.
The steam juicer gets lent out for one of my neighbour’s crops and I get a couple of bottles in return. Yum!
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http://www.self-reliance.com/mag/in-the-garden/amaranth-the-herb-that-keeps-on-giving/
All parts of the amaranth are edible, including roots, stems, leaves, and seeds.
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They look happy
I do hope you get some too
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Unbeknownst to me, the tomato plants in the greenhouse were having a little competition amongst themselves to see who could grow the biggest tomato.
Marmande (left) won, with 342g (12oz) but Coeur de Boeuf (right) came a close second with 302g (10.2oz).
This is a surprise win for the grown-from-seed Marmande, as the grafted C de B was the favourite, apparently. But it probably had the highest gross weight overall, though the grafted Agora may have given it a run for its money.
Unbeknownst to them, they’ll probably be sauce soon. (Though there has been some talk that they might get stuffed instead.)
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We grow from seed as well. That’s how they do it when left to their own devices, so it’s good enough for me!
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Seems a pity to sauce them when they worked so hard to get that big. I’d probably slice them and eat with salt, they look delicious. But stuffed sounds nice
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You’re probably right, but I do have quite a few more (well, many TBH) over 250g for slicing and eating raw.
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I have eaten a smoked cheddar and tomato grilled cheese sandwich every day for weeks, plus tomato chunks/cherry tomatoes with mozzarella balls daily as well, and backing all that up, as @Kii said, is simply eating them with S&P.
Plus, of course, so many friends have happily appreciated the gift of tomatoes (and other produce) every time I see them!
If I have to sauce, I will, but the glory of home grown tomatoes should not be condensed unless absolutely necessary!
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I grow excess specifically to make sauce to freeze, for use in a variety of recipes, keeping us going all winter. And some pure tomato sauce gets cooked with a bit of onion, garlic and olive oil and then bottled and sterilised as ready-made jars of pasta sauce.
We have bush cherry toms for eating with lunch every day, though I do slice the larger ones into cheese sandwiches.
But for unusual health reasons (another story) I cannot tolerate too much tomato skin. So once simmered and reduced to a near passata consistency they get rubbed through one of these to remove all skins and seeds…
… and then frozen into 2" ice cube trays, then sprung from the trays and bagged once fully frozen, ready for all sorts of winter cooking loveliness.
I must have made a couple of dozen 2" cubes so far and have probably 2-3 kilos of toms in the larder waiting for sandwiches, stuffing or saucing.
Anything even slightly unripe goes into chutney, of course.
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I have one of those too, but without a snazzy red knob!
So are you using the 2" cubes as tomato paste stand-ins, or what?
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Exactly - but consistency varies according to patience and whether I start simmering early enough before I have to go out. Sometimes ‘sauce’ (juice), sometimes something approaching what I’d call a passata, but never quite thick enough to qualify for what I’d call a paste (or purée).
Occasionally I’ll rub them through a sieve when it’s just juice and take the tomato ‘water’ off first before pushing the flesh through. Tom water is excellent for risottos.
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