Today’s Harvest Basket, July 17, 2014
Zucchini, tomatoes, onions, carrots, bell peppers, cucumber
More food than we can eat. I am starting to can, dehydrate, bake. photo PBH
That GIANT CARROT, the one that is over a foot long, (top right) is a Scarlet Nantes. As I pulled these carrots, most were 6 or 8″ long with deep orange color and are sweet. I just have no idea why this one foot long carrot is so big, or the others are so normal.
Sweet and hot peppers are loaded up on the peppers plants out in the garden. Today, these blocky bell peppers would be perfect for stuffing.
Carrots
All the other carrots grew as described in the catalog. Anyway, the seed came from Nichols Garden Nursery. If you are interested in growing carrots, you still have time to order seed and plant a fall crop. Fall harvested carrots are even sweeter and they can take light frosts.
Scarlet Nantes is an heirloom. It is sweet and it stores well. The big news item here is that the seed is only $1.65. Amazing to find a reputable seed source under $2. I plan to grow these again this fall. What a bargain.
Nichols has a great variety of carrots, some that are under $2 a packet. There is also good carrot growing info on that website.
Cherry tomatoes
Under the “you get what you pay for” category, this variety of cherry tomatoes is in full production. The white cherry tomato was supposed to be Great White tomato. Oh, well. The seed was free and the little cherry has a good flavor.
The tangerine colored tomato is exactly what I expected from a F1 tomato. I grew it from seed. This Sun Gold tomato is as sweet as can be.
And the almost red cherry tomato is from a volunteer plant that came up where the Sun Gold cherries were last year. It was a curiosity. I wanted to see if it would come up like Sun Gold, but instead the tomato plant came up as a long-lost member of the family tree. It is not very sweet. I think it takes after the prolific side of the family, not the sweet side.
It’s no surprise
When I want to use up mammoth amounts of summer squash, I make Zucchini cake, zucchini pie, and salsa.
The zucchini pie was originally from an old Taste of Home Zucchini Pie recipe.
As a herb gardener, I had to change-up the recipe a bit. My Zucchini Casserole recipe is on Hub pages. The Sweet and crunchy grape picnic salad is there too.
Patsy Bell Hobson is a garden writer and a travel writer. For her, it’s a great day when she can combine the two things she enjoys most: gardening and traveling. Visit her 
