Late August and the Tomatoes Are Running the Garden

I noticed, today that one of our gardener's plot is a 8' x 8' mass of cherry tomatoes, a sight to see. Then I went to the Chris plot. I decided that it was time to remove the clarey sage from the path at the west end. It was dried and took up so much space that getting into the plot was a balancing challenge. After I removed it I noticed that that little volunteer cherry tomato plant by the beans was extended over the lettuce and tomatillos almost touching the east end of the plot. Fine. You can have a bit of space but really. I yanked it over and wound it around a part of the trellising exposing lettuce and lots of little borage plants.

I learned this week that my 23 year old son cannot stand eating tomatoes. Weird. Where have I been. It's like not noticing for 8 years that my daughter Rebecca doesn't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. She stashed them everywhere - under the couch cushions in the umbrella stand, under my bed!! It turns out that William likes cherry tomatoes because they're compact but to bite into a wonderful chunk of Brandywine is really unpleasant for him. More for me and good thing there is this crazy volunteer.

The end of August means back to school, shorter days and fewer gardeners visiting their plots regularly. In our garden, we have gardeners who summer here in West Philadelphia but live during the academic year elsewhere. Visiting a few time in fall and winter. Garlic is planted, late tomatoes harvested.

I even find that come September visiting after work each day is a challenge. Good thing I got that iphone flashlight app.

Tonight it's stuffed peppers. Not mine. A buck a pound at Whole Foods for organic. They were huge. I was tempted to do the as my mother did. Stuffed with beef and rice and topped with Campbells tomato soup but couldn't do it. I loved them. I stuffed mine with brown rice and black beans, added mushrooms browned with onions, seasoned with lots of thyme and parsley from the garden, salt and freshly ground pepper, I added some grated fulvi romano cheese. I topped the peppers with tomato sauce I made while sauteing the mushrooms.

I only buy organic. Almost always, anyway. I bought six Hatch chiles last week. I can't grow them, I've tried. Finding them fresh in Philadelphia is rare. I'm waiting till fall to order dried red NM chiles, but fresh green unthinkable. That's why I need to spend the fall in Albuquerque. That'll happen. I grow mostly little hot peppers. I've especially enjoyed the Fish variety. Great flavor and nicely hot, Riot is good too and I'm going to let the last Tennessee Cheese peppers ripen to red. There is such a temptation to go wow a nice big one and pick it green. Big for Tennessee Cheese is golf ball sized. For some strange reason I ended up with only one of these plants. Lots of Riot & several Fish.

I'll make a tomatillo green chile sauce. I've got this handy grill that I got from the Santa Fe Cooking School called an asiado for grilling chiles on my stovetop.

The red noodle beans are growing like wildfire. 4 make a meal, and they look wonderful. They attract ants but so far not bean beetles. This may be because I planted them late. But the bean beetles are all over the bush beans in the Elliot plot planted about the same time. I like to steam/ roast them and add them to my late summer radicchio sorrel big tomato and basil salad.