Saturday, August 29, 2009

The 2009 crop



It's weird at work, I feel like I'm living in this agricultural community instead of New Jersey. Everybody is bringing in their produce from the garden and comparing notes. I've had a good year myself. Maybe it's because of the rain or maybe it's because the squirrels seem to have subsided this year, but I did well with my cayenne and anaheim peppers as well as my cherry tomatoes. The cayenne and cherry tomatoes came from seed (cheepo seeds) and the anaheim peppers came from a co worker. I'm guessing on the anaheim label but that's what they look like. They guy I got the from claims they are "Portuguese hot peppers" but I'm skeptical about that label.
In true agricultural areas people are blase about their gardens. You can tell city folks a mile away.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

August 2009




Not too bad. This year I bought "Plantation" seeds for a dollar apiece at Big Lots. I bought cherry tomatoes and cayenne peppers. The cherry tomatoes are fairly large and seem to have done well. The plants are bigger than I imagined, even bigger than the Ramapo tomatoes I grew last year. The peppers didn't fair as well. Still I have already been using my meager yield for cooking. I also got a plant of indeterminate origin from a co-worker.
This year, for whatever reason, I didn't have the squirrel problem I had last year. One squirrel was hanging out in a basil pot but they don't seem to have eaten anything so far. It has been a very rainy year but the hot sun the past few days have been instrumental in ripening the cherry tomatoes. I counted about forty-five fruit so far.