tomatoes gone wild

All the plants are currently located at Sean’s place since they all needed to be in one place when we were on vacation and they are much to big to be moving around a lot now, so there they stay. They have taken over and claimed his balcony as their own.

Today I took a pair of heavy duty scissors over there (Sean does not own a pair) and did some serious pruning. There have been other attempts prior to today but there is only so much you can do with a pairing knife. Silly me forgot to take a picture prior to the hair cut so all the pictures are the after shots.

The majority of the tomato plants are at one end of the balcony. Except for the one that hangs out with the pepper plants. They rotate so they will all get some of the optimal space.

The chili peppers, red bell peppers (which are still green) and the purple container peppers are all doing very well. I will probably have to do a harvest of the chili peppers tomorrow. I will keep some in the fridge and then blender the rest and freeze them in small usable portions for fresh chili’s all winter long! I might do some research to see if there are other ways to preserve them as well. Still waiting to be able to pick the peppers from the other two types and getting impatient!

All but one of the tomato plants have beautiful tomatoes growing. The first picture shows my black tula tomatoes. I can’t wait til they change colour to see what they look like and taste like. The oblong ones are the San Marzano and will make delicious tomato paste or canned tomatoes. The rest are my mystery plants I started from seed and we will just have to wait and see what colour they become.

And here is a picture of the pruned branches to give you an idea for how much was taken off. I place the cuttings on top of the soil to act as mulch and to keep the soil of the tomato plants from drying out. It does seem to work quite well.

If the tomatoes keep doing so well I will have to hurry up and get some canning equipment so none of our produce will go to waste!

the week at the cottage

A picture summary of our vacation.

Canada Day

We had a whole flock of Canadian geese on our cottage island that kept coming back periodically throughout the day. They were very people shy, most likely because they had quite a large number of  young ones with them. Their first appearance was around noon and they kept coming back periodically throughout the day.

At just after 4pm I decided it was time to make our first attempt into the lake. We both changed into our bathing suits, grabbed our towels and went to the little beach they have to the back of the cottage. It was very shallow and had a lot of little rocks that made it very difficult to walk out far enough so that there was enough depth to properly submerge oneself. We gave up and decided to jump into the hot tub instead of allowing our feet to be massacred. The hot tub was a very good choice and was enjoyed with a bottle of Innis & Gunn.

The Canadian geese made another appearance as we were warming up the BBQ for dinner. I made homemade burgers with havarti cheese, orange tomatoes, roasted orange pepper, grilled onions and lettuce. We used pitas as the buns and it worked out wonderfully except for the cheeky chipmunks who would jump on the table and pilfer them when my back was turned to flip the burgers. Sean had to come and stand guard after the second time.We of course enjoyed dinner with a Canadian Cask edition of Innis & Gunn. They appear to make one every year in honour of Canada Day and it seems to become Sean and I’s tradition to have one of these on this important day (this would be our second year of said tradition). Desert was grilled pineapple and nectarine. I was very glad I only cut up four slices of pineapple because even though we were full it was so good that we both would have likely kept on eating it until it was gone!