hide and seek with tomatoes

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It’s not 90 degrees today! Par-tay!

(Mother Nature, I am NOT saying it needs to be cold right now. The predicted 50s-80s is perfect. We do NOT need an early winter. I’m just expressing my gratefulness that 90+ is done. Ok?)

In case you sleep through storms and didn’t find a branch across your front door this morning… it stormed last night. Hard rain can be tough on plants, and we have a few outside crops that ended up on their sides or dropping stuff.

One of our precious pawpaw trees dropped some fruit right on top of the itty bitty fennels that just got transplanted out of their seeding trays. The fennel all looked ok, so that’s good. But the pawpaws will have to get composted as it’s illegal to sell (or give away) fallen fruit. As it’s a very light pawpaw crop this year, the loss of those 4 pawpaws is sad.

Even though the Tokyo bekana is grown under cover in the hydroponics house, it decided to flop over in solidarity with the outside crops, the weirdo.

At least I finally have a good side view of it.

We’ve got some celosia planted in a high tunnel and it is just loving it. This plant in particular looks just amazing. The main stalk could be a bouquet all on its own. And the wall of tomato plants is a perfect background to make the flowers pop.

I swear the tomatoes conspire against me. I will comb the rows looking for ripe tomatoes to take a picture of, and if I’m lucky, will find one or two that are close-ish.

But then a couple hours later the crew will come in with crates and crates of tomatoes! I don’t know if our plants have camouflage abilities or they just poof, turn red (or whatever color their ripe color is) in the three hours between when I looked and when the crew picks. But it is just not fair that I can’t see ripe tomatoes on the plants (cue foot stomp)!

Some seasonal inspiration:

​Napa Sweet Corn Salad​

​Mini Meatballs with Orecchiette and Escarole​

​Eggplant Bowl with Mint and Cilantro Chutney​

​Spicy Chickpeas with Tomatoes & Kale​

​Spiced Pear Bread Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce​

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Happy Eating!

Elizabeth

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PS: If you live in New Castle County and have been wanting a rain barrel, the NCC Rain Barrel Program is open and you can buy one for $50.

Open Tue-Fri 9-6, Sat 9-5.

Closed Sunday & Monday.

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