In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

One of the joys of eating seasonally is the arrival of tomato season. I pull the tomato recipe file and make my plans. There are favorites from years past and new recipes to try.

Tomatoes come and go. They arrive through the back door and a good number go out the front door to neighbors who do not have a garden, which lately numbers about five. No ones turns down tomatoes.

In this Covid-19 year I had trouble securing the tomato varieties I wanted to plant. I had decided not to grow them from my saved seed since I would only be planting three tomatoes. In the fog belt where I garden it’s a race to ripen the tomatoes before all the leaves depart due to mildew and blight.

‘Early Girl’ and ‘Stupice’ do acceptably most years. ‘San Francisco Fog’ on the right stood in for ‘Stupice’ this year. It is similar to ‘Early Girl’ but smaller in my garden. The ‘Early Girl’ tomatoes are on the left plate next to the ‘Black Krim,’ my favorite tomato; though Cherokee Purple might be close. ‘Black Krim’ seems to split less for me but I plan to try Cherokee Purple again next year.

I usually let most of my ‘Red Beauty’ peppers pursue their genetic destiny but there were several large peppers crowded together. It was time for stuffed bell peppers.

The pepper recipe folder is out now as well. I plan to chop some of the green peppers for the freezer this week.

We feasted on ‘Sugar Pearl’ corn most nights last week. I’m glad I separated the plantings by about two weeks to extend the goodness. No raccoons this year, thankfully, but there were other problems. See my post from last week Corn Problems and Solutions.

This is the second wave of the nectaplum harvest. Yesterday we harvested about half again as many from the two trees to close the season at 35 pounds. We’re pleased since the trees have only been in 18 months and seem to be thriving in our coastal location.

A few of the nectaplums were quite soft or had some damage which I saw as an opportunity to try a lavender nectaplum shrub (AKA drinking vinegar). I reasoned that the colonists likely did not use the best of their fruit crops for their shrubs.

After chopping about a pound of prepped nectaplums I added the requisite two cups brown sugar and the late season lavender. I used more lavender this time than with the lavender apricot shrub for a stronger flavor presence. Slide the gallery view above to see the mixture in a metal bowl covered on the counter for two days. After the maceration, the syrup is extracted and the vinegar mixed in. Results next week. The recipe is from Food52.

There were daily harvests of two to four ‘Raven’ zucchini. Once again, willing neighbors gratefully received the surplus.

Container arugula and shaded summer romaine lettuce are the start for great summer salads.

I always grow zinnias with the summer vegetables. This year they have the corn as their backdrop in a small 2 x 4 foot patch. Last week I picked 28 hot pink zinnias. The week before it was a preponderance of orange ones. I left the red, light pink and orange zinnias for another day.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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