{"id":1563,"date":"2009-09-10T20:33:21","date_gmt":"2009-09-11T00:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/?p=1563"},"modified":"2010-10-08T21:15:40","modified_gmt":"2010-10-09T01:15:40","slug":"its-been-a-lackluster-gardening-season-except-for-the-tomatoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/2009\/09\/10\/its-been-a-lackluster-gardening-season-except-for-the-tomatoes\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s been a lackluster gardening season &#8211; except for the tomatoes!"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--CusAds--><p>It&#8217;s been a strange gardening year.  <\/p>\n<p>On one hand I think I did more work in the garden this year than I have in the last two or three &#8211; in other words I was feeling a bit better and was more into getting my hands dirty and my arms scratched up by the roses, but then the weather was well &#8230; blah &#8230; more like a warm spring than summer, so the plants didn&#8217;t grow as well as I&#8217;d hoped earlier in the year and that put a damper on my garden enthusiasm. <\/p>\n<div class=\"912745ff53504cd4aef8ff3ef7b9aa95\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: right; margin:10px 0 10px 10px;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-3375789278566919\";\r\n\/* gardengrows_300x250inpost *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"4054669721\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<p>It&#8217;s a stunted garden in some ways because of the cold July we had. My Cleomes are only just now starting to grow &#8230; they&#8217;ve reached maybe 3.5 to 4 feet in height where they should be about 6 feet tall by now. <\/p>\n<p>My Tomatoes are possibly my best garden crop this year.  In the past few years I&#8217;ve planted my tomatoes late, and well last summer was rainy and cold too so my tomatoes never really turned red.  This year I planted them early enough that they grew well in June, stagnated in July with green fruit on the vine that wasn&#8217;t really growing and then come August the tomatoes really took off (as they should!).<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been eating Tomatoes since maybe the first week of August (second at the latest) and it&#8217;s been great.  There&#8217;s nothing better than a fresh tasty tomato right off the vine. <\/p><!--CusAds-->\n<p>I&#8217;ve been eating tomato sandwiches, adding tomatoes to our salads and other foods and pretty soon I think I might try grilling some tomatoes or well maybe sauteing them as my sisters recipe calls for putting them in a frying pan (saute garlic in oil then cut a tomato in half and cook &#8211; apparently the garlic oil just goes right up into the tomato &#8211; delicious!). <\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;ll also have enough tomatoes that I&#8217;ll be able to freeze some for tomato sauce.<\/p>\n<p>I discovered a very easy way to freeze tomatoes a few years ago. Forget dropping them in boiling water to get the skin off before freezing.  Just place whole tomatoes on a baking pan and place in the freezer. Let them freeze (while not touching other tomatoes) and then place them in a freezer bag.  Later on when you thaw them the skins just slip off as they thaw and once thawed you can put them in a pot and start making a nice tomato sauce from scratch. <\/p>\n<p>One thing that I must do soon is take some pictures of the garden and all the plants in bloom.  For some reason I haven&#8217;t taken as many pictures this year as I usually do.  I could be short on pictures for <a href=\"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/join-green-thumb-sunday\/\" data-wpel-link=\"internal\">Green Thumb Sundays<\/a> in the winter if I don&#8217;t start snapping away now!<\/p>\n<!--CusAds--><p>How is your garden doing this week? What late summer\/ fall flowers are blooming?<\/p>\n<div class=\"912745ff53504cd4aef8ff3ef7b9aa95\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<br\/> <br\/>\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-3375789278566919\";\r\n\/* gardengrows_underpost_300x250 *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"0957462354\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<br\/>\r\n<br\/>\r\n\r\n<?php if ( is_search() || is_single() || is_page() || is_paged() || is_category() || is_archive() ) { ?>\r\n<div align=\"center\">\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\nch_client = \"dragonden\";\r\nch_type = \"mpu\";\r\nch_width = 468;\r\nch_height = 250;\r\nch_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\";\r\nch_color_title = \"FF9B00\";\r\nch_color_text = \"333333\";\r\nch_non_contextual = 4;\r\nch_vertical =\"premium\";\r\nch_sid = \"gardengrows_betweenposts\";\r\nvar ch_queries = new Array( );\r\nvar ch_selected=Math.floor((Math.random()*ch_queries.length));\r\nif ( ch_selected < ch_queries.length ) {\r\nch_query = ch_queries[ch_selected];\r\n}\r\n\/\/--><\/script>\r\n<script  src=\"http:\/\/scripts.chitika.net\/eminimalls\/amm.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br\/><\/div>\r\n<?php } ?>\n<\/div>\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been a strange gardening year. On one hand I think I did more work in the garden this year than I have in the last two or three &#8211; in other words I was feeling a bit better and was more into getting my hands dirty and my arms scratched up by the roses, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,39,82,27],"tags":[523,1550,5311,5356,5360,5354,5359,270,259,5357,5358,5361,3906,5353,5355,205],"class_list":{"0":"post-1563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-garden-buzz","7":"category-home-and-lifestyle","8":"category-summer-in-the-garden","9":"category-vegetables","10":"tag-blooms","11":"tag-camera","12":"tag-cleomes","13":"tag-cold-summer","14":"tag-fall-flowers","15":"tag-freeze-tomatoes","16":"tag-late-summer","17":"tag-photos","18":"tag-picture","19":"tag-slow-start","20":"tag-stagnant","21":"tag-stunted-growth","22":"tag-tasty","23":"tag-tomato-sandwich","24":"tag-tomato-sauce","25":"tag-tomatoes","26":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feverishthoughts.com\/garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}