2019 Spring Garden Southern Utah: Tomatoes

Here are some pictures of my tomato plants when they were first planted in April 2019. I bought plants as opposed to starting these from seed. My town is in growing zone 8a.

Celebrity Tomato (Back) Patio Tomato (middle) Sweet 100 (front)

Juliet Tomatoes, 2 plants

Pictures from May of the same plants. I've done a lot of pruning of these plants so that I can find the tomatoes that have ripened! We had a Spring that was cooler and wetter than normal, and the plants grew like crazy!

Juliet Tomato Plants x2

Sweet 100s in foreground, Juliet plants in back bed

We started harvesting these in May as they ripened. Here is a picture of today's haul. I harvested some large Celebrity tomatoes yesterday that we used for dinner, but didn't get a picture. Below, these Juliet tomatoes are prolific and are shaped like an oversized grape. Tasty yet sturdy.

Juliet and Sweet 100s tomatoes

2018 In My Southern Utah Garden

February 2018 Almond Tree in Bloom. Pruned in January.

Broccolini producing continuously in April 2018.
Planted end of March.

Beets.

Large harvest of Broccolini. June 2018

First tomato! April 10, 2018. Costco plants, harvested tomato
one week after planting.

Yellow pear tomatoes and Sweet 100's.

Roma tomatoes.

Figs and other harvest June 2018

Blackberries June 2018

Cauliflower and assorted tomatoes. June 2018

Celebrity tomatoes.

Roma tomatoes

Swiss Chard.

Spinach

Yellow squash

Spring Garden in Southern Utah

Even though I haven't had a blog post in a while, I have been keeping up with my garden. I continue to harvest Swiss Chard, carrots, parsley, and chives.

 

Chives

 

Parsley

Swiss chard

I've been putting in some raised beds, and I'm hoping to get away from all of my containers/pots. Hopefully I'll get a better yield at harvest time because of the switch.

snap peas



snap peas



I'll post more pictures this weekend. I have lettuce and spinach seedlings to plant, as well as blueberries and blackberries.

Last Tomato Harvest of 2012

Cherry Tomato Harvest Dec. 7, 2012

Sorry for the picture quality on the tomatoes above....used my cell phone and it was nightfall so the lighting wasn't great. But, on the positive side, I still have tomatoes fresh from my garden. I harvested the remaining tomatoes last Friday (Dec. 7th). I had to protect the tomatoes from frost in November once or twice, but I'm glad I made the effort.

I grouped the tomatoes according to ripeness, using the ripe ones to make fresh salsa to serve with dinner. Yes, it was delicious!

The green tomatoes from last week are now turning red. I think I'll have enough cherry tomatoes to last me through the week.

I'm already starting to think about tomatoes that I'm planting in 2013! I had a horrible problem with tomato horn worms, so I am definitely going to use some kind of organic treatment on my plants this year. The horn worms were getting more tomatoes than I was at one point in the season!

I still have parsley, chives, mint, Swiss Chard and carrots growing in my pots. It's been raining today, so they are all getting some water.

Are you still harvesting produce from your garden? If so, I'd love to hear what you have on hand!

Zucchini Pizzas with Basil

I was able to buy a round zucchini at the local farmer's market. A friend had told me that she was going to grill pizzas from the one she got, so I thought I'd give it a go as well. In case you haven't seen a round zucchini, they look like this:

....kind of like a pumpkin, but green! So fun and so many possibilities in cooking with them.

First, I cut slices about 1/2" thick. I coated each side with a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil so that when I put them on the grill, they wouldn't stick. Unfortunately, my zucchini pizzas didn't make it on the BBQ (starter wasn't working and I couldn't get the dang thing lit). I used my George Forman to cook the already coated-with-EVOO zucchini discs. Four to five minutes was all that was needed. I then put them on a cookie sheet, smeared a little pasta sauce on them, sprinkled with grated mozzarella cheese, and then baked them at 350* for about 10 minutes until the cheese melted. After cutting some fresh basil from my garden, I sliced it up and sprinkled it on the baked "pizzas."
 

I served these with a large salad with plenty of greens and sprouts, and some rolls. Delicious!

Microgreens a more nutritious vegetable?

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/08/29/160274163/introducing-microgreens-younger-and-maybe-more-nutritious-vegetables

Great article from NPR's blog, the salt. 

Basically, the article says that current nutrition studies indicate that microgreens may pack more nutrition than other vegetables.

I've got several trays of sunflower greens growing right now. We love them in salads. Delicious!

CSA produce for June 13, 2009

It was another wonderful CSA for the week. I feel so spoiled getting so many great produce items. In the picture above, you'll notice a bag of pecans in the shell, cabbage, green onions, beets with the greens attached, carrots, 2 bags of lettuces, bag of spinach, bag of chard, broccoli, herbs and salad dressing. Not picture is my dozen farm fresh eggs. I bought the sunflower sprouts from Lea's Micro Garden. I'm addicted to them!

My CSA, Cricket Song Farm is great. Jill is the farmer, along with her family. She will trade other farmers for items. Today I got some Italian dressing from Jill. She traded with another one of the people at the St. George Farmer's Market. I love trying out the new items. Last week, Jill had given me some homemade soap, made using oatmeal and goats milk. I have it at my kitchen sink where I wash my hands a lot. It is great.

I spent several hours washing, spinning dry, chopping up and cooking some of the vegetables. I cooked the spinach for a recipe I made today (Lasagna Rolls), which I will post later. It was delicious!

CSA produce pick-up for May 16, 2009

Wow, my CSA had wonderful items this week! It kind of feels like a special occasion to get all of this great produce and eggs!

I love how Jill (Cricket Song Farm) tucked in the nasturtium flowers (which are edible) with the lettuces and spinach....very sweet.

I was totally thrilled to receive the garlic salt in a grinder spice jar....awesome! Check out that artichoke!

Purple cabbage......I'm going to chop it up and eat it raw in a salad.

Here is the full "haul"....rhubarb, gigantic-enormous squash, bag of lettuces, bag of spinach, radish sprouts, radishes, garlic salt (in the handy grinder/container!), shallots, green onions, artichoke, chives, tarragon, and arugula. I am using most of the lettuces for a party tonight. I'm going to make a rhubarb/strawberry pie for my friend, Char. I love having so much produce...fantastic!

What did you get at your farmer's market or CSA this week? Post a comment and put a link to your post.