Tag Archives: heirloom tomatoes

Today’s Harvest Basket August 5, 2014

Cucumbers and tomatoes

Juicy cucumbers and tomatoes.

Big tomatoes are coming on everyday. BLTs are on the menu every week. Tomato sandwiches are a lunch specialty. Fresh sliced cucumbers in vinegar are always in the fridge.

This long Japanese “Tasty Green” cucumber is thin-skinned (no need to peel) and is “burp-less” Cucumber season is much too short, so when they are growing in our garden, we eat them every day. Slice up one of these cucumbers, put in a covered container.

Cover cucumbers with herb vinegar or apple cider vinegar diluted with water, if the vinegar taste is too strong. Sometimes we add sliced onion, separated into rings.

Once the cucumbers are gone, reuse the vinegar water and add another cucumber. We  have two cucumber vines. A White Wonder and the Tasty Green.

Days are getting shorter…

I also planted a F1 English cuke which did not come up. I’ve grown them for years, so this was an anomaly. When the seed packet arrived, I took half and sent the rest to my mother in OK. “This is the best cucumber you have ever eaten,” I wrote in a note enclosed with the seeds.

“They didn’t do any good,” she replied last week. Who knows what happened? We both grew other cucumbers as well,  and have more than enough to share with neighbors.

I’m gambling on a late crop of little Kirby type cucumbers. The late planted cucumbers are just seedlings now.

Our unpredictable weather and extra seed make planting late crops a gamble but to a costly one. The cucumber seedlings are cheered on by the long slow rain today.

Cherrie’s sweet tomato flavor is concentrated by dehydrating.

All the cherry tomatoes are rinsed, cut in half and put in the food dryer. Here’s how: Make sun-dried tomatoes to use up cherries.

• Japanese cucumber “Tasty Green” seed is from Renee’s Garden