Another season

I'm not much of a blogger. The 2011 season ended quietly. I harvested and froze my beans and managed to get a few more ripe cape gooseberries before it started getting frosty outside. I chopped down everything that was left some time ago. And the contents of my little compost bucket is frozen. Winter is here... sort of. The weatherman seems to be in denial and it seems more like November or March outside, not January.

I haven't given much thought to what I'll grow in 2012. There was talk of a family vacation that would take me away from the balcony for a chunk of the summer so I won't be planning anything overly ambitious.

These are the beans I wanted

I've let my pair of Borlotti bean plants die with a load of bean pods hanging on them. Some of the pods are still green but as they turn yellow I've been picking and shelling them. And the beans inside have that nice specked appearance I've been waiting for. I won't get much - maybe 1/2 cup of shelled beans in all. Wonder what I should do with them...

Zapotec Tomato

Finally, a ripe Zapotec. This plant did really well considering it was pushed off into a corner where it struggled for sunlight. There are a couple of clusters of similar sized tomatoes on the single giant plant I have on the balcony. The tomatoes I got were not as large or interesting looking as the ones I've seen in books and around the internet. Inside is looks a little hollow as I expected. A good number of seeds.

This one tasted pretty plain though. I mean, it tasted like a tomato but wasn't special. I expected it to be a little sweeter but it wasn't terribly acidic either. I don't blame the variety for this fault. I blame the plant and where the blame really lies is with the gardener. I crowded my balcony with too many large tomato plants this year.

Gold Medal Tomato

I picked this Gold Medal tomato over the weekend. This one grew without much cover from the sun and had a couple of green streaks on its shoulders. But it was quite ripe overall. A good size. Nice tomato. But the taste of this one didn't impress me. Came across as kind of weak. The plant this tomato came from didn't perform very well and I blame a lack of sunlight. Too crowded on the balcony this year. The rest of the family thought the tomato tasted great though. Thick juicy slices of tomato don't last long around here.

First and Last Green Tomato

The Green tomato was ripe so I picked it. That's the last time I grow German Green tomatoes. I gave that plant the best sunlight and it continues to grow well bit it didn't set many flowers and only one actually set fruit. This one. It measured a mere 3 inches.

But it was a good tomato. Few seeds, meaty. Somewhat sour but a little sweet as well. It was certainly ripe: had turned to a nice shade of yellowy lime green with a slight pink in some areas.

Opalka Tomato

I've read that people grow Opalka Tomatoes for canning because of their shape. But I decided to try them because I heard good things about their taste. I finally had one ripen enough to eat and it didn't let me down. It had a nice tomato taste. It certainly wasn't weak. A little sweet perhaps. Not very acidic. It had an almost smoky taste to it. Very few seeds. Meaty on the inside but some hollow spots. I was impressed actually. Not a bad tomato. Has to be the best plum shaped tomato I've tasted. Mind you I don't grow very many.

Some of the other tomatoes on the plant are shaped a little better than this first one I picked. The plant itself is growing really dense with lots of growth. It almost seems to be resisting my attempts to make it grow straight. It's a crooked plant covered with leaves. Takes a lot of digging through the growth to find the tomatoes.

Strong Winds

Big storm with lots of gusting wind while we were out this afternoon. My four front line tomato plants were knocked down but did not completely fall off the chairs they sit on and there appears to be no damage to the plants. I'm sure a few branches and leaves got bent or crushed but it doesn't look like I lost any tomatoes. And other than those plants falling over, everything else survived just fine.