In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

Summer lettuce has always been a challenge in my garden, despite our coastal environs. This year we’ve had garden lettuce grown from seed all summer. These two smaller heads of ‘Jericho’ romaine were caught just as bolting was around the corner.

I attribute the success to several strategies. First, I’ve landed on lettuce varieties that are more heat tolerant and slow to bolt and I kept up with succession sowings.. ‘Jericho’ performs the best in my garden. For others check my previous post Summer Lettuce.

I place my lettuce transplants in shady locations—behind a trellis, under dill or in the shadow of large tomato plants. Harvesting when heads are smaller and picking outer leaves regularly also makes garden sense in the summer.

But just as I consider the lettuce success, tomato hornworms show up. I found two Thursday and should have known there would be more. I was not in the garden Saturday and Sunday afternoon found a dozen hornworms that had decimated about half of the new growth atop the waning tomato plants. I had not dealt with these pests for about a decade, so was not expecting them. Lesson learned, I hope.

Here are photos of the tomatoes in my kitchen yesterday after dinner and gifting some to neighbors.

Upper left are some very large black cherry tomatoes with a quarter placed for size. ‘Cherokee Purple’ and ‘Black Krim’ are next in position with dependable ‘Early Girl’ providing what my husband prefers.

Earlier in the week I made 1.5 quarts of tomato sauce for the freezer and roasted the black cherry tomatoes with red onion, garlic and olive oil for a memorable pasta meal. More roasted tomatoes for the freezer this week.

The ‘Emerite’ pole beans continue to produce well despite shorter days. I found some dried pods and on checking was pleased to learn ‘Emerite’ is open-pollinated. I’ll let more seed set and share some with my friend at San Diego Seed Company. She has trialed and added some of my proven vegetables and flowers to her offerings.

And as the summer garden wanes, let the cool season garden begin. This weekend I planted three cauliflower varieties that did very well last year and also some red Brussels sprouts, a gift from a friend.

You may enjoy seeing what other garden bloggers harvested last week at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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