Tomato Garden August 2022

 I realized that I've yet to do a post that is solely about my tomato garden area. This was the first year that I've grown tomato from seed. If you haven't done that, I highly encourage people to try it out. It's not as hard as I had made it out to be. They are rather forgiving. Anyhow, I seeded them all in on April 1st and I got them all potted out in mid-June due to wacky weather. We had a super wet June here and most of my warm weather crops are a month behind. No matter. This is the most tomatoes that I've ever grown in a summer and we're already figuring out how to double this amount next year.

These are the tomatoes that are in the first row. I give 1 foot of space for each variety and I have them planted out in 5 gallon grow bags. We have 2 10-foot long, 6-foot high chain length fence panels secured on t-posts and I use plastic clips to secure the plants to the fence.

My first tomatoes are starting to blush. These are Isis Candy Cherry.

Yes, my plants are in various stages of yellow. Due to growing in fabric bags, we have to water more often. Since I have beds/gardens spread out all over the place, it would take hours to walk around to everything and water it. We opted to use sprinklers. It's not the most conducive way to get water to tomato plants as they don't like to have their leaves wet. We have found out that if we water at night, we get less burned leaves. So that's what we do. We put the sprinkler on them for about 30 minutes nightly.

These are Purple Russian tomatoes. They are a plum shaped black variety. The black tomato flavor profile has always been my favorite.

These are the Black Krims and the Red Dumplin Winner Pinks. 
Black Krims are, hands down, my favorite tomato as far as taste goes. I've yet to find another tomato that can beat the taste of a Krim.

Here's a closer look at the Red Dumplin Winner Pink tomatoes. This variety came from Tomato Jim Wyant.

Here's another shot of those Purple Russian tomatoes. They will sure look pretty once they start to blush.

These are baby Orange Jazz tomatoes. I have a particular fondness for orange tomato varieties. I love the flavor of them. Not the yellows so much, but the oranges.

Here's another variety that falls into the orange category that I'm anxious to try. This a Thorburn's Terra Cotta.

This is my group of the 5 tomatoes that I did not grow from seed. The Isis Candy Cherry is one that I bought and the 2 Black Krims, the Purple Russian and the Bonny Best are from my friend, Jean.

Here is Bob's hand for size perspective on these Isis Candy Cherry tomatoes. Like I explained, I know exactly why we have such yellow leaves on there.

Bob's hand for perspective on one of the Black Krims.

Another pair of Black Krims. One can never have too many Black Krim tomatoes to enjoy.

This looking down the middle aisle of the tomato garden from the side that I'm growing Sart Roloise on. Those bigger ones are Bulls Heart Red.

I believe that every single plant has set fruit now. This is a baby Dark Galaxy.

Here's a cluster of Cream Sausage. These are a determinate white paste variety. I'm very anxious to try them and see what a white tomato tastes like. I've never had one.

Everywhere I turn the camera in there, I'm finding more and more tomatoes. These are Cascade Lava.

Here are some of the Opalkas. I have 5 Opalka plants. I'm happy that I was able to get that many! These are for processing.

These are Prairie Fire tomatoes. I purchased the seed for these from Baker Creek. I planted these out to can up. The description said that they are very sweet, so I'm hoping that when I make sauce, I won't need to add very much sugar by adding these in.

Another shot of an Opalka tomato. Opalkas, due to their sheer production, will always have a place in my garden from now on.

No tomato garden would be complete without a picture of our volunteer er...tomato. I had Bob stand in front of it to show how big it's gotten. I don't think it will produce squat but, it's a determined little bugger, so who am I to pull it up? I'll let it go and see what it does.

These Opalkas are odd shaped tomatoes and that's what makes them so easy to identify especially when the names have washed off the tags. Next time, I'll use a pencil.

These are Pink Fang. The seeds came from Baker Creek. These are another paste variety that I planted to grow out for canning up.

Here's my tomato garden oddity. This is a Reisetomate. I've been wanting to grow this particular variety for the past 10 years. I cannot wait to see this ripe. If I like it, I'll grow it again next year to save seeds from. These are also called "Traveler's Tomato".
They are cool to look at because they look like a deformed tomato.

This is my garden beauty this year. This is a Sart Roloise. Once fully ripe, these are white and blue. I can't wait to see this fully ripe. I have 2 of these plants out there on the fence.

Here's another shot of the Reisetomate. It's just really cool and I can't quit looking at it!

Another Sart Roloise. I'm beyond happy that I was able to get these to produce.

This is a Bulls  Heart Red. This is another variety that I planted out for canning.

Baby Prairie Fire tomatoes. I'm pretty pleased with their production. I can't wait to taste these guys.

Here's another shot of the Cascade Lava tomatoes. These are a Brad Gates variety. I grew these out because of the name. I live in the Cascade Mountain foothills and I live very near Mt. St. Helens, so the name means something to me.

And yet more baby Opalkas. What can I say? I have 32 tomato plants and 5 of those are Opalka.

I am also growing 4 tomatillo plants. I planted 2 of them from seed and 2 I bought from our local farmers market because I wasn't sure if I would get the tomatillos that I planted to maturity or not. As it stands right now, I couldn't tell which are the ones that I grew or which are the ones that I bought.

This is a shot from the center aisle of my tomato garden looking out toward our cat pen. It's amazing to me that everywhere I point the camera, there are tomatoes!

Everywhere I look, I've got these small, stunted, sturdy tomato plants producing. It's a marvel to me!

One of my last parting shots of the Sart Roloise. It's just a stunning looking tomato, no matter how you look at it. That's why I put these right at the end of the row, closest to my deck. I want to sit here and look out my dining room window, while I type out this blog post, and look at them.

I did the same thing with the Reisetomate. I put them right at the end of the row, right in my line of sight.

If anyone is curious as to just how big Opalkas get, there's Bob's hand for perspective. Bob is 6'1" and has some catcher's mitts for hands.

 
Here's a more clear shot of my tomatillos. Again, I don't know if I grew this one or not. I just know that all four bushes are producing and they love the hot weather.
I will hopefully not have to purchase supplemental tomatillos for green salsa and enchilada sauce, but if I do, I know that next year, I need to double the amount I grow and I'll put them in the greenhouse.

Oh, yes, before I forget. We ordered another greenhouse like the one we have up, but it's a 20 foot long one.

Tomatillo blossoms. We still need to put a few things in place, such as our fifth wheel hitch.

Here's my tomato garden. I will always grow them up using a chain length fence as a trellis. It's super easy to throw a tarp over the top to protect them if we're looking at getting a deluge of rain.
I also like how neat and tidy this looks. My plan is to get another 2-3 fence panels put up to grow tomatoes on. I just need to figure out where to put them.

I could possibly just continue off the back of these and have rows of 20 instead of 10. We'll have to wait and see.

By garden time next year, that pile of metal will be gone. That's for our canopy that goes over our trailer. As soon as Bob gets a free few days, he's going to pay someone to come up and help him get that thing up over the trailer. I told him he can do it whenever just as long as it's done by this winter.

A parting look at my tomato garden this morning. I love these foggy, overcast mornings, when the sun just starts to push the fog out and then the fog fights back and covers the sun again. It's soothing to me as I sit and look at my tomato garden out of my dining room window, drinking my coffee and writing this blog post.

Thanks for taking the tour with me.

Harvest Chicken & Rice

 Today was relatively cool at. We barely broke 70 degrees out. I had harvested quite a few of my Walla Walla Sweet onions a few days ago and we had a pretty decent picking of green beans. I also harvested my garlic so that I could get ready for the new seed garlic that I have coming in.

I came up with a new recipe for dinner tonight.

Bob had taken out a package of bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs to thaw a few days ago and I needed to get them used up. We also picked a pretty decent sized mess of beans.

These are a mixture of my Tongues of Fire, Dragon Tongue, Tanya's Pink Pod, Cherokee Wax, Blue Lake and Contender beans.

The Harvest Chicken & Rice recipe starts out with a chopped sweet onion. You could use a Vidalia if you don't have Walla Walla Sweets available. I also chopped up one of my small heads of garlic. It doesn't get much more fresh than this.

I melted butter with olive oil. This is what I used to saute the onions and garlic.

Once the onion gets translucent, add in the rice and orzo mixture.

Saute this until the orzo starts to smell toasty and gets lightly golden brown. I cooked this in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven, so I did this low and slow.

I removed the skin from 4 chicken thighs. Then I sprinkled them, both sides, with a blend of spices.

Those get set upon the rice mixture once it has been browned.

Then I poured in chicken broth and water. I put the cover on the Dutch oven and let it cook in a moderate oven for 45 minutes.

This is a simple and delicious recipe. It hit all the right spots for us.

I served this with simple boiled beans. I cooked these in part chicken broth and part water. I didn't get a photo of the end result because we all know what boiled beans look like.

Harvest Chicken & Rice

4 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
1 small chopped sweet onion (like a Walla Walla Sweet or Vidalia)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil (or avocado)
1-1/2 cups long grain white rice
1/3 cup orzo
1-3/4 cups chicken broth
1 cup water

Spice Rub for Chicken:

1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
Sea salt and black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pull skin off of chicken thighs and rub with spice rub on both sides. Set aside.

Saute onion and garlic in butter and olive oil over medium heat until onion is soft and translucent. Add in rice and orzo. Stir to coat with oil/butter. Cook until the orzo begins to smell nutty and gets lightly golden brown.
Place seasoned chicken thighs on top of the rice, add broth and water. Remove from heat. Cover tightly. Place in preheated oven and cook for 45 minutes or until chicken reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees on a meat thermometer.

Fluff rice and serve.

Enjoy!