today's pick

with a quick trip through the garden this morning and i have a basket full of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  sounds like a good salad to me, just need to make a stop in the herb garden and maybe the grocery store for some cheese and bread.  what more could any one person possibly need?  starting on the left are banana peppers and going clockwise, two ananas noire, a pile of big beef, lemon cucumbers, 4 cherokee purple, chocolate cherries and gold nugget and finally, a small mortgage lifter that needs to ripen a little more.

on this plate, a close up of mortgage lifter-the two at the top, going clock wise, a cut cherokee purple which is also in the center,

tiny bonito ojo, and finally, big beef cut and whole.  I apologize for the lousy colors in the photos, i really need to get a better camera.

in this photo, my new favorite tomato, ananas noire.  they are a little prone to cracking but that does not stop me from eating them.  they are so sweet that they can be eaten like fruit!  not a very pretty tomato color wise.  it is easy to see why they are called noire-black.  they are green inside when ripe.

next year, i will definitely plant the chocolate cherry again, they have great flavor and a good yield.  the gold nugget, on the right is also a good little tomato but the yield is not as high.  if i do those again next year, i may plant two.

these banana peppers are sweet and the little bush is producing a lot of peppers.  i would love to try stuffing some, a chile rellenos dish would be great.  next year i may plant two so that i can make that dish.  if they are left on the plant long enough, they turn red.  maybe we will plant some hot ones too!

the last two years, cucumbers have been a challenge.  during last years drought, we watched our vines shrivel up and the few cucumbers we picked were bitter.

in the fall we tried again with a third variety only to have the same results.  we assumed it was both the drought and a poor choice of seed variety.  this year  we went with store bought plants and a few seeds for the lemon cucumbers that were a free gift with our order to rareseeds.com.

those little lemon cucumbers are the best we have ever grown.  although we have had good results with store bought cuke plants in years past, this years are often more bitter than sweet and they look a lot like the asian cukes we grew from seed last fall.  from now on, it's lemon cukes for us!