I am not sure how many of you here are gardeners, and derive your joy from summer vegetable growing. I am among the ranks of the best nuts when it comes to
this topic. Here is an instance of just the tomatoes I am trying to grow this year - all are heirloom varieties, and in our climate, they ought to thrive -
though we have had a very cool June so far. I got a six pack for 1.99 from Home Depot that contained six heirloom varieties:
Amish Paste, Saint Pierre, Brandywine, Homestead 24, Marglobe Select, Rutgers Select
Aren't they pretty in their pictures?
I went for all red there, because red tomatoes are very high in the compound Lycopene that is cancer protective. So, just for colour, I also raised three other varieties from seeds:
Green Zebra and Marvel Stripe - from this little packet:
They are all doing very well in the ground, and there is fruit set on most of them! Sometime in the hot days of I July, they will become edible - hurray!
Even with the water bills, it works out a lot cheaper for us to grow our own vegetables. We share the bounty with friends and family who live locally. We also make sun-dried tomatoes and can the pulp from a whole bunch every year. We consume so much tomatoes throughout the year (Indian cooking is not that far from Italian in this respect) that we really like to use our own produce ...
Other vegetables growing very peacefully in our backyard are: scarlet red runner beans, purple beans, jalapenos, serranos, Clemson okra, a whole bunch of Indian gourds, Malabar spinach, Fenugreek greens, celantro, ... and so on.
Gardening is the most soul-nourishing project I know. I love this time of year!
Amish Paste, Saint Pierre, Brandywine, Homestead 24, Marglobe Select, Rutgers Select
Aren't they pretty in their pictures?
I went for all red there, because red tomatoes are very high in the compound Lycopene that is cancer protective. So, just for colour, I also raised three other varieties from seeds:
Green Zebra and Marvel Stripe - from this little packet:
They are all doing very well in the ground, and there is fruit set on most of them! Sometime in the hot days of I July, they will become edible - hurray!
Even with the water bills, it works out a lot cheaper for us to grow our own vegetables. We share the bounty with friends and family who live locally. We also make sun-dried tomatoes and can the pulp from a whole bunch every year. We consume so much tomatoes throughout the year (Indian cooking is not that far from Italian in this respect) that we really like to use our own produce ...
Other vegetables growing very peacefully in our backyard are: scarlet red runner beans, purple beans, jalapenos, serranos, Clemson okra, a whole bunch of Indian gourds, Malabar spinach, Fenugreek greens, celantro, ... and so on.
Gardening is the most soul-nourishing project I know. I love this time of year!
