big day in the garden

i’m guilty of garden neglect. i let things get crazy. this morning/afternoon i spent about four hours pruning tomato plants--brutally, i even cut off some branches that had baby tomatoes on them, which made me die a little inside--then spent another couple hours on general maintenance. and i was rewarded with the best harvest yet:

three paul robeson tomatoes, four chocolate cherry tomatoes, two small ears of corn, some beans, two pounds of purple potatoes and a glut of miscellaneous little tomatoes.

here are the potatoes, they didn’t fit in the basket. i set them in the grass because i think they look like easter eggs. all this from one super-tiny seed potato and some nice idaho potato-growing soil...i’m growing more next year for sure.

for dinner i sliced up half the potatoes, mixed in the beans, added olive oil and seasonings then roasted them. sogoodohmygod.

i also ate a raw ear of sweet corn. yumm. all the rest of the ears look like they’re about half the size of that first ear, i don’t know why. they taste the same.

i got to try two new tomato varieties today: chocolate cherry and paul robeson. i expected the chocolate cherry to be a smoky, dark sort of flavor, but not at all--they taste like pineapple! super juicy, light, sweet and tropical. seriously more pineapple-flavored than tomato-flavored. i think it must be a weird reaction to the growing conditions because they are not supposed to taste like this. delicious, though.

paul robeson (pictured above) also tastes a little strange, and i’ll risk whatever tomato-tasting credibility i may have to say they taste like canned asparagus. this might require a suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader...first pineapples and now asparagus. maybe my palate’s just wacky. anyway, robeson is delicious too--the asparagus flavor is not very strong, it mostly tastes like awesome tomato. meaty as hell, really cool texture, almost no seeds, look at this thing:

now i’ve sampled white currant, yellow pear, mystery (paste grape), ladybug, sugary, black from tula, chocolate cherry and paul robeson, in that order. my favorite is still white currant, with the two from today tied for second.

i made an exciting discovery while pruning: big rainbow tomatoes! two of them. this plant was the last hold-out for weeks, refusing to set fruit. i’d given up on it.

the dwarf sunflower patch is finally opening some blooms. these took so much longer than i thought they would.

yesterday i pulled up my tiny patch of wheat. it’s for decoration, i’m not going to attempt anything foodish with it.

i leave you with mr. tomato head: