Tomatoes are up

The black cherry tomatoes came up yesterday. Pretty much all of them I believe. Those things didn't waste any time and I seem to recall having no trouble starting them last year. But everything else is still down, like all the old pepper seed that I planted. I have low expectations for those. I was going to go out and seed a box with some greens and radishes but it's just too windy today. Sunny, but howling windy. Maybe tomorrow.

Time to get planting

Time to start thinking about the balcony again. We had that run of unusually warm weather last month that made me think summer was almost here. But temperatures have settled back to April norms.

I just seeded a seed tray with Utah Celery and from what I've been reading it's a little late but so what. I also started some Black Cherry Tomatoes which I had much success with last year, some Casper Eggplant which I've never had much luck with, Hungarian Hot Wax Peppers which have grown well in the past and some old California Wonder Pepper seeds that I will be surprised to see germinate. The tomatoes will be planted out for sure but I'm not sure yet which of the peppers or eggplant will, if any.

I want to start a bunch of Basil plants too but I'm going to hold off on those for a while. And I'm planning to start some watermelons also: Golden Midget and maybe... maybe Sugar Baby. I plan to grow the midgets for sure. Not sure about the sugars yet. I've got some time before those need to be started.

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.