Summer Gardening

I believe it is well known that, in contrast to those of you with green thumbs, I have a black thumb of death. I am very good at killing plants, whether through neglect or through over-watering or what have you. Pancho, however, thrives on yard work, and my mom loves growing things, so between the two of them we ended up with 4 tomato plants, 2 bell peppers, an assortment of lettuces and herbs, a dwarf lemon tree, and a frankenstein-like apple tree with 6 different varities plumbed in, all to nurture into fruitfulness.

The lettuces thrived faster than we could eat them, especially after I went off leafy veg early in the stages of my own nascent fruitfulness. You will notice in the picture that one is actually taller than my head. We have now learned not to plant too many lettuces, and that they love the spot right next to the apple tree, but aren't too keen on being on the back porch step. So I didn't manage to kill off these hardy little guys, but that's largely because the sprinkler system seemed to give them everything they could ever want.

Our other success was the tomatoes, which apparently thrive whether you neglect them or shower them with care. We were pretty chuffed when they just seemed to spring up without much help, and we glowed with excitement when we saw those first glimmers of ruby red.

Then, they started taking over the path and growing taller than me standing up. (You can't really see this, since the vines got so heavy they plunged back to the ground or looped around each other.) If you walked along the path, you inevitably were tinged with a slight shade of chartreuse and emerged faintly scented with tomato. I would have stripes of color on my arms and legs pretty much every time. I learned quickly not to walk back there with khaki pedal pushers on.

Given the bumper harvest, I'm thinking next year we'll stick with 1-2 plants, instead of 4. I'm running out of ideas for what to do with so many tomatoes! This morning, I took a boxful and am now slow-cooking and also oven-drying them all. Although people say that you can just individually freeze cherry tomatoes, I don't quite have the freezer space for that, so I thought taking some of the water out via drying would help. Apparently, I can put the results into a jar with olive oil and herbed vinegar or (for longer storage) in an airtight container and into the freezer. So that's why, on what promises to be a hot day, I am running my oven on the lowest possible temperature and why the slow cooker was banished to the dining room floor.

And I still have another box left...and more coming...

And lest you think that the black thumb of death has found new life, let me assure you that I have substantially weakened (if not killed) two expensive golf-ball plants, and the lemon tree is sick.