I finally got a cantaloupe for myself today. No pictures, I ate it already.
I’m still waiting for the Sugar Baby watermelons to ripen, they’re huge, but apparently not ripe yet since the tendril at each hasn’t even started to die back yet.
For anyone else trying to figure out when Golden Crispy Melons are ripe, part of the answer is that once the skin starts cracking PICK THEM NOW BEFORE THE INSECTS FIND THEM. I can also confirm that they don’t slip off the vines like cantaloupe. Other than that I can’t help you. Maybe I’ll do better next year……
Once the real tomato rush hits I’m going to be overwhelmed. There are SO MANY tomatoes on all those HUGE plants this year. Wow. And unlike last year, this year my little home-made 3′ tall cages are NOT cutting it. The Black Icicles are pushing 8ft tall, and everything else is taller than my eye-level. Well, the ones that haven’t fallen over from lack of support are anyway. You can’t even SEE the cages anymore.
Since most of the tomatoes are going for sauce (or maybe ketchup if I have enough and time to play) anyway I’m going to try just stuffing them into gallon ziplocks and freezing them till I have time to actually make something out of them. Its supposed to work fine with fruit for jelly, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t for tomatoes for sauce.
They do look pretty all together in the bowl though:
Not sure if its the heat or what, but I’m also having a horrid time with blossom end rot this year too. I’ve already added calcium to the tires, both when planting the plants and again a few weeks ago. I don’t normally have to pitch more than a couple tomatoes for BER, but this year I’ve already pitched several Icicle tomatoes and a bunch of the Black Plums. Rapid growth is supposed to be one of the triggers, so thats what I’m blaming it on. Cause yah, we’ve had some rapid growth this year!
I had to treat all the pepper plants for caterpillars this week. They’d found my paprika peppers (which looked AWESOME till I looked closer), and I ended up picking and pitching more than half the peppers due to the damage. Hopefully I caught it in time to save at least some of them.
Ripening Hungarian Hot Wax peppers:
I’ve got two more baseball bats er, zucchini out there to pick and process, and god knows when I’m going to have time to do that. Maybe tomorrow.
Melon Pear fruit:
Size wise they’re a bit bigger and fatter than the biggest grapes I’ve seen, but not by much.
Some flower pictures, just cause:
We froze whole tomatoes last year and were pleased with the results, but only used them in soup. Nice, fresh flavor
Good! I don’t see why they shouldn’t turn out fine since I want them for sauce and the like, but I’m glad that someone else has tried it too!
I’ve frozen tomatoes before, and it works fine. I put them on a cookie sheet to freeze first, then in a gallon bag. Large tomatoes I would cut in half or quarters first so they froze more quickly. I’ve also pureed them real quick, then put in the gallon bags for freezing and then cook/can them up when I had time later.
awesome, glad to hear it works!