cherry tomato superabundance

The sungold tomato vines that are growing in the hoophouse have been producing fruit galore these days!

They're such beautiful little things and oh so sweeeet.

I think they're best kept displayed on the table in a big bowl so that all who see them can pop one or two into their mouth as they pass by....yum, better than candy!

The red cherry tomatoes are also amazingly productive. All that I don't sell to my customers are going into the freezer to be thrown into winter slow cooker stews.....but some are being slow roasted in my toaster oven....

These are quite possibly the best tasting thing I've ever eaten!

Here's what I do: First I harvest and collect my homegrown cherry tomatoes, green and purple basil and garlic. I cut the cherry tomatoes in half and arrange on my oven pan with the cut side up.....crush garlic and place some on each tomato, a little sea salt, then chopped up basils on top of that and into oven (or toaster oven) for 4-5 hrs at 225 degrees....

Here they are just before going into the oven. Beautiful.
I'm so into these right now that I think everyone needs to go run out and pick their cherry tomatoes and do this with them, asap. Can't have a summer without this treat at least once or twice!
And if you're on Mayne Island and don't have any cherry tomatoes growing in your garden, give me a call (I have some for sale) and then make a note to self to grow some next year :-)

This is the display of my hoophouse cherry tomatoes at Happy Tides Health Foods at the Fernhill Centre. Tamara's clever "canned tomatoes" are 1/2 lb. each. They're available at Happy Tides all week long and probably next week too.....

cardoons

The cardoons are blooming beautifully in the garden these days and the bees love them. This artichoke flower bud is not the one we're accustomed to eating...it's the midrib of the leaf that's eaten here. I've only grown these for the amazing dramatic look of the plant and for it's flowers that are lovely dried. Last year, I was lucky to get to use them in a bridal bouquet. The bride was from California, where artichokes are commonly grown and she liked the idea of having a little part of home with her as she married here on our island, far from the artichoke fields of California. It was fun to use these beauties in a bride's bouquet! Too bad I didn't take a photo.
And too bad I didn't have some cardoon when I was in San Francisco with CJR a couple years ago...they were in season!...and on the menu of a couple of the restaurants we went to. I have only tasted them once and not part of a real meal so I'm going to have to make sure that I try harvesting and using them from the garden this spring.
Here's what wikipedia has to say about Cardoon.

This year's garlic crop is all sold out. Here I am moving some from the spot where it was curing and getting it ready to sort and bag up for my customers.

I harvested the garlic back in July. Time to think about planting next year's crop now. Here are some plants after I pulled them and cleaned them up a little. They are curing on a table in my outdoor covered workshop space. This year, I spread them out on tables and put them up on some wire mesh racks that I have installed in the rafters...see my photo of the garlic curing in the rafters here. Many garlic growers hang their garlic in little bundles to cure but since I have the space, I do it this way...it seems less time consuming and works well too.

Garlic looks so lovely with it's stalks left on, bundled and hung in the kitchen....which is what I do with mine after it's cured and cleaned. It's easy to just take a clove from a bulb when you want to use some too....I've also noticed that garlic keeps over winter much better when the stalk is left on. I'm not sure why, but it works. Here it is hanging in my kitchen, waiting to be used up.

And below, all bagged up and waiting for customer pick-up. I give everyone the whole garlic plant so they can decide if they want to hang it or maybe cut the top leaves off and put it upside down in a vase (which is a fun way to display garlic in the winter!...see above link for a photo of that too)

If you're reading this and would like to pick up a bundle of garlic in a bag like this from the garden next August for 2011-12 winter eating, let me know and I'll plant some with your name on it :-)