Harvest!

We harvested our first wave of tomatoes from the garden today. Not a bad haul for only two plants of red heirloom tomatoes and one unstaked yellow plum tomato plant. The basket holds some basil, which we've been harvesting for a while.

There is a single bull-nose bell pepper and a single Anaheim pepper on their plants looking pretty close to ready to remove. I'm optimistic the flowers on the upper part of those two will produce another round. It's probably not going to come to fruition, but I can hope.


It's been a bad year for tomatoes in this region. Many farmers and backyard gardeners are losing their plants and fruit to the Late Blight fungus. Evidently, it's the same pathogen that caused the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840's. One of my plants doesn't looks so healthy, but the fruit are looking fine so far. After pulling these today, there are only a handful of immature tomatoes on each. I'm crossing my fingers and will wait and see.

I made insalata caprese tonight with the tomatoes and basil (with mozzarella, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar) as an appetizer Bethany could eat as soon as she got home from teaching her yoga class. I also made a big bowl of pico de gallo to adorn our dinner of nachos with chicken, refried beans, red pepper, and cheese. There are still more than 10 good-sized tomatoes left to make vodka sauce for tomorrow night's dinner.

Easterly ride

I got out early for a 25+ mile ride out east of Pittsburgh and then back north through Oakmont and along the Allegheny River. My cell died before I got too far out of the urban areas, so I didn't get many pictures of the winding, forested roads. Nonetheless, I got a few on my way out. I couldn't figure out if the lot above is private or a community garden, but they're growing a lot of food for being in the city. Those are rows of corn.

I also admired a beautiful abandoned bridge with trees growing on top.


And a bit further, there was a former gas station with two old-time pumps without their protective shrouding.

Getting into the garden

This past week, I started getting the garden set for the spring. I pulled finished compost from the bottom of the bin. The sticks aren't decomposing all that fast, but the kitchen and yard scraps do just fine. Well, eventually just fine. The outer material against the bin walls is dry and dessicated. The upper core spent the winter in nasty anaerobic mode and smells really, really bad.

I still have to remove what's grown up and to turn the compost into the soil.


I also pulled a really beautiful wasp nest from the awning.


For posterity and embarassment's sakes, here is a larger shot of our downtrodden back yard before I did any work. I wish I could say it looks much different now, but it doesn't. I hope the grass seeds I sowed take and fill in some of the patches in the grass.

First Cucumber

Yay, the garden has finally produced something besides weeds! Bethany found our first cucumber. And look what else is brewing...