In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Aug 11

Aug 11 In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Green beans have been the star performers in the summer garden this year. ‘Provider’ bush beans did not mind the persistent gloom of May, June and much of July. The ‘Emerite’ pole beans had a slow start because of neighboring corn but now are picking up.

Tomatoes, on the other hand, only hung on through the cool and on a couple of the plants it will be a race to ripen the remaining fruit before all the leaves disappear. Perhaps next year I will try trellising my tomatoes and be more selective about which varieties I grow.

‘Black Krim’ has been productive and the even the largest fruits didn’t split. I’ve given away dozens of them. The cherry tomatoes have been abundant but unremarkable—not the black cherry tomatoes I was expecting.

A large harvest of the cherry tomatoes roasted with garlic, my red onion and olive oil went to the freezer for a future pasta dinner but I also mixed some with black beans and red pepper for lunch. The San Marzanos and others made sauce for the freezer and eggplant Parmesan.

The zucchini are coming along with the warmer weather, producing at a manageable rate. A Mexican friend told me enthusiastically that the squash blossoms make a nice addition to quesadillas.

I gathered a few edible flowers—lavender and violas—for floral ice cubes.

I think they’ll be especially nice with my next round of Lavender Lemonade. I did a blogpost last week on my favorite summer beverage.

With the some navel oranges sequestered in the fridge from last winter, we squeezed our last round of juice. Not the same peak season quality but still delicious.

Bumble bees are abundant this year—perhaps a resurgence of populations after our plentiful rains last winter. I had not seen them in my garden during the prior five drought years. They are especially important to pollination of tomatoes and have been frequent visitors to the vegetable and flower gardens.