At the end of last week I picked a huge quantity of cooking tomatoes and I’ve been picking salad, beefsteak and small tomatoes every day. Several days lunch has been Caprese salad with good homemade focchacia and maybe a few olives.
The grafted San Marzano tomato hasn’t produced fruit quicker than the other ordinary plants so I wouldn’t worry to buy that again; but the peppers are certainly worth it as everyone told me I wouldn’t get any red or yellow peppers.
San Marzzano tomatoes
I harvested the first 2 melanzane (aubergines) and my very first ever peppers. I cooked them by simply grilling them on the barbeque along with a couple of overgrown zucchini (courettes) – they need to be a big larger to grill so at least there is something to do with the ones that seem to hide until there’s too big.
I’m picking roughly one cucumber per plant every day, there’s six plants so obviously I have too many! They aren’t as good to eat as last year’s, I seem to remember there’s something about male and female plants, but I don’t remember the details I need to look it up.
If you have any good recipes for cucumbers I would be very grateful.
ready to pick
First pickings of the season
I’m still picking raspberries but not at the same rate. My cultivated blackberries are beginning to fruit but only a few each day.
The garlic are now plaited together as are most of the onions; the red onions are still growing, but very slowly, they’ll be small but good for mixing with other vegetables and roasting them in a hot oven for a tasty ratatouille.
This morning (bad time, should be evening) I planted some broccoli, romanesco, more lettuces and some small beetroot plants. I have some fennel plants too which need to go in. I’ve also just planted a few more tomatoes which I’m promised will take us into October with fresh, ripe tomatoes. I’ve pinched out the tops on those that have reached the top of the canes; this usually means they have produced about 7 or 8 trusses.
Creating my own garden of the Hesperides 
Lovely photos of very nicely grown produce – well done! I have taken note of your observations and am off outdoors now to pinch out the tomato plants.
Buona continuazione ….
Pinching out the tomatoes is like picking zucchini, there’s always one you miss that gets bigger and bigger!!!
Cucumber & lettuce soup, from Gail Duff’s Vegetarian Cookbook (1978):
heart 1 webbs lettuce finely chopped
1 small or 1/2 large cucumber small dice (don’t peel)
1 oz butter
1 large onion finely chopped
1 teasp dill seed
1 tablesp wholemeal flour
1.5 pints stock
2 tablesp chopped parsley
2 oz curd cheese
juice 1 lemon
Soften onion in butter with dill seed. Add lettuce and cucumber. When lettuce wilted stir in flour then stock. Bring to boil add parsley then simmer uncovered approx 15 mins. Work cheese & lemon tog in a bowl then add 6 tablesp gradually hot soup then return to pan. Mix well and reheat but don’t boil.
Hope this is an idea (updated and amended as required) to use up some cucumbers – and lettuce.
Y
Thank you, I’ll try it. Last evening I made a salad with cooked grated coconut, an Indonisian recipe. Very good, I’ll post it soon
Cucumbers sliced thin with onions and a bit of sugar are very yummy in the summer. One of my favorite salads. Pickles are great too since you have so many. Love it when that happens! Your tomatoes look fantastic.
Thank you Tina. Last year none of my cucumbers were bitter, this year several of the plants are. I need to check why, I may remove the plants that aren’t nice, there are so many cucumbers anyway I could plant more melons maybe.
Hi again Christina, I tried to add your blog to my blog page and the link with your comment did not work-maybe the url changed at one point. I finally found you again thru Blotanical. Just wanted to let you know.
Sorry to bother you, the email notification that came did not take me to your blog but the link on the comment page did so it is working. Yeah!
Sorry, I don’t understand it. Are you using firefox, sometimes there seems to be incompatibilities. I’ll try to find out why it is happening