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Welcome to my personal blog. I have another blog, Herbert's Place, but that one limits me to what I sometimes want to publish, because it is mainly used to promote my books. As it says in the header, I want to use this blog to write about things that have nothing to do with my books. There is no real theme here. I'll be writing about anything that causes me to either be happy or somethings that concerns me. It could be political, travel, a hobby, or anything else. So come and visit me sometimes.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

A giant tomato

It's been a good year for tomatoes and peppers. My pepper plants are loaded with peppers. I already harvested all the red ones and some green and orange/yellow ones, but there are still so many left. Same with the tomatoes. I have 4 Sweet 100 (Cherry tomatoes) and a couple Sugar Snack (also cherry tomatoes). We've been picking ice cream pails full and still there are so many on the vines. I also planted Super Fantastic, Fantastic, and Celebrity tomatoes. I've never had so many huge and perfectly shaped tomatoes. I'll never grow Big Boy or Beefsteak tomatoes again. They always get gnarly.They are never nice and round. One of the Super Fantastic measured 4 inches across and 3 inches high and weighed 550 grams, that's over a pound. One tomato lasts me for a whole week. I put a couple of slices on my rye bread with ham for lunch. Hmm, tasty.
Yesterday my wife and I made Salsa. We used up lots of tomatoes and peppers, but that doesn't even make a dent into our harvest. We gave already so many tomatoes away. Next year for sure I'm going to cut down on plants. I said that for this year, but next year I will ( I made my wife a promise).
Everything grew this year quite vigorously. Today we're eating Swiss Chard for the fourth time, and there is still enough left in the garden for another meal. As long as we don't get frost it'll be okay. We've had two close calls already. It's that time of the year.
I also dug up all the Red Beets. They were a bit of a disappointment. They didn't get very large, and most of the larger ones were nearly half eaten by some rodent. I'd say about one third of the harvest was gnawed on. I had to throw away quite a few. Luckily, I already harvested a whole bunch in August and my wife pickled them. Next week she'll make a few containers of Borscht for me. We'll freeze it and I'll have enough to get me through the winter. We already froze a whole bunch of dill. You have to have dill with your Borscht. It's the only way to eat it. We pick the dill when it is young. That's when we weed the garden in the Spring for the first time. I pull out most of the small dill plants. They are quite succulent then. We wash them and put them into small plastic freezer bags. Thawed the dill don't lose its flavor. Much better than dried stuff.

This is the large tomato. I don't even feel like cutting it up, it's so beautiful.

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