I was all ready to go - armed with my scissors, wheelbarrow - thinking "it's been a great season, but it's time to say goodbye" - then discovered there are loads of green fruit on most of the plants. What an amazing year - so I cleaned out a few that were obviously gone or not totally entwined with living plants - and realized that there is a long way to go. Even Lillian's Yellow Heirloom is loaded with green fruit - and Cherokee Purple - and JD Special C Tex...you get the idea. Dwarf Mr. Snow may be the heaviest setting variety of the entire season for me.

With eggplant and peppers reblooming, continually feeding and watering to keep everything growing, I can see the harvest continuing for weeks yet - so I will have to be creative in deciding where to get the fall crops located. I took a few pictures with my cellphone camera (the lens was clearly in need of a good cleaning, so these are hazy.). But they will give you an idea of where things stand - messy for sure, but still alive!

Your guide to these pics:

top row - pepper and eggplant rows from the rear, Okra!, unripe Mortgage Lifter (pale leaf mutant)
second row - Fish pepper, three Dwarf yellows that are spot on in color - top is Dwarf Mr Snow (ivory/white), lower left Sean's Yellow Dwarf, lower right Summer Sweet Gold (showing the expected blush) - and Pretty Purple pepper.
Third row - cluster of Morty F1, numerous unripe Dwarf Mr. Snow, Green Ghost eggplant
Fourth row - another view of driveway, butterfly on Cosmos, healthy Dwarf in the back row (Beryl Beauty)
Fifth row - Fall tomatoes (mostly new dwarf X indeterminate hybrids I created), more bale Dwarfs that are thriving, Mexico Midget on back deck
Sixth row - 

Southern Season in Chapel Hill. Thursday, September 3 at 6 PM. What does 40.00 get you? 
A seat in a clean, brightly lit, modern but comfy cooking area, well placed monitors so you can see everything going on, intimate enough so that everyone feels close to the action.

Ample samplings of delicious creations prepared by Caitlin Burke and her assistants, four courses - and glasses of wine in between. 

Demos and information from both Alex (master grower and roaster of said peppers) and me (passing on the home gardening and historical and variety information on this most easily grown and sough after crop) - and a bit of humorous banter between the three of us. Slides showing attractive pictures of Alex' farm, my garden, and our peppers.

The joy of the magical combination of good people, good food, and good information.

Convinced?  Here is how you register for the event.  Click this link.

Once the link is clicked and you are in, all that remains is arriving on September 3 for a really fun and delicious event. We hope to see some of you there - it will be well worth it!

(ps...yes, there will be copies of Epic Tomatoes that can be purchased, and I will sign!).

Last night Sue and I were fortunate to have attended a big, complex, loud, delicious, creative, FUN (I could go on with adjectives) tomato party. Renowned local chef Ashley Christensen (on her birthday!) threw an Epic Tomato event at her events locale, The Bridge Club. It is another piece of the puzzle in this most humbling, exciting, busy year of activities catalyzed by the release of my book, Epic Tomatoes. 

Sue and I got to share a table with friends from my former working life, and around the room were familiar faces from seedling transactions at the Raleigh Farmers Market or our driveway. By the end of the evening, my "tomato friends" circle increased significantly...and if all went well, there will be more folks finding places to plant tomato vines next season. When you can combine a great hobby, passion, people, history and stories with great food, it makes for something really special. 

I will let the menu speak for itself (see below). My brain hasn't finished processing the skillful way ingredients were combined to produce depth and deliciousness with every fork or spoonful. I've also included some other pics from the evening. 

Thanks, Ashley - and Happy Birthday - and thanks to the entire staff, and my Quail Ridge friends.

It always happens...this is the time of summer where the heat, humidity, constant watering, harvesting, processing - and, this year, book events (not complaining of course - they are fun! but they take time) take their toll on me. I am having just a wonderful year, and taking a bit of a breather from the near daily reporting. The slightly slower August I envisioned is finally here - as the garden activities ebb in the coming weeks, the Epic Tomato book activities accelerate - September is particularly hectic. 

But this is the garden blog, so I will stick to gardening topics. Though we aren't getting nearly enough summer squash for our liking (thanks, rabbits and deer), the constant flow of tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, eggplant - and now figs - is triggering creativity in the kitchen. Let's go crop by crop - where things stand.

Sweet peppers:  glorious! I've saved seed from pretty much all of them, and we have plenty to do all sorts of creative cooking with. Like the entire driveway garden, this is when things get tippy/unruly/stacked in places, but that's fine. All I need to do is look for red or yellow or orange, and I can get to the bounty.

I've stuffed them, roasted them with eggplant, sauteed them, chopped and frozen them. I had a few surprises - one of my White Gold is an unusual color of chartreuse to brownish purple to orange red. Same with my Chocolate Bell this year. And Royal Purple is not quite dark enough in color - it is more like Amethyst. It's OK - we are happy to eat the surprises!  Best of all are the six different delightful sweet Paprika peppers - we made our third batch of Paprika today by letting them turn red, slicing thin, dehydrating until crisp, and spinning them using the chopper of our food processor. Fresh Paprika is indescribable!

Hot peppers:  Seed is saved and there are countless fruit on the vines - it's time to put an SOS out to the neighborhood chili heads to come and get em! I am glad I cut down on my hot pepper grow outs this year, and focused on those that are not incendiary - we actually can eat with some tolerance the Padron, Jalapeno and Serrano types growing out there.

Eggplant - Wow. So many eggplant. We've settle on Pasta Alla Norma (roasted eggplant sauteed with garlic and tomatoes to make an amazing sauce or topping - peeling, slicing, dipping in egg and bread crumbs and baking into crisp rounds that can be easily frozen - or simply roasting peeled cubes seasoned with olive oil, salt and pepper at 400 for 45 minutes until they are sweet and useful in any number of recipes - and even frozen in bags. Aside from two varieties, seed is saved from all of them - and Midnight Lightning, Skinny Twilight and Twilight Lightning, all my selections from Orient Express hybrid, did great. In fact, all are continuing to do great. My main surprise - Mardi Gras lost its purple blush and is behaving like Green Ghost. My two Green Ghost plants are not quite - one is white, the other very pale green.

Tomatoes - plentiful and delicious. The Dwarf variety in straw bale project is a great success. Many of these varieties are just spectacular. The indeterminate varieties in 5 gallon bags would be more successful if I could have brought myself to top them at 5 feet. It's a tangle out there! We finally ate a Lucky Cross today, along side a stunning Lillian's Yellow. That's GREAT eating. And the first Brandywine is in the on-deck circle, ready tomorrow. 

We've canned twice, made two incredible Crostatas with "oven-nearly dried" tomatoes (a recipe we experienced at the Southern Season cooking class), had pasta salad, made Sun Gold cherry tomato pesto Trapanese, sliced them to do flavor comparisons many times, two Gazpacho and a tomato bisque. They seem happy to be continuing - perhaps for a few more weeks. Which reminds me that I need to feed them tomorrow - and to clear out those that decided to give up the ghost.

I've also made some successful crosses onto our dwarf varieties that will represent leads for future Dwarf project entries. Imagine - Mexico Midget X Summertime Green. The cross took - the hybrid seedlings are up, and indeterminate. I hope to grow a few of the new hybrids this fall, to provide fun things to play with next year.

Am I still having fun? You bet!  Am I tired?  Indeed - but it is a GOOD tired!

Below - preparing peppers to dehydrate, the first batch of Paprika, and an indescribably delicious tomato Crostata. Now, off to grab the immersion blender and make our Gazpacho for tonight's dinner!

I've not been a very disciplined blogger recently. Or lower diseased tomato foliage remover. Or tilting pepper and eggplant straightener. Or weeder. Or indeterminate tomato in 5 gallon pot topper. As always, the season gets away from me a bit at this time of year. The incessant heat makes spending a bit less time outside, a bit more time in the house a really attractive proposition.

Here's a bit of a progress report. 

Tomatoes:  There are 38 plants in straw bales (all of the released dwarfs), 7 on my deck (cherry tomatoes) in large pots, and 48 varieties in the driveway center in 5 gallon grow bags (mostly indeterminate, but a few dwarfs that are back ups of those in bales). That makes 93 plants. I've harvested and tasted 80 of them. Some have been really stunning. Seed has been saved from anything that I've harvested.

We've canned (twice), made Gazpacho, Bisque, Cherry Tomato pesto, our favorite couscous dish, a tomato crostata, had countless Caprese salads, and just sliced them up for mini tastings.  Such fun.

Eggplant: We've harvested fruit from all 14 - in some cases a LOT of fruit, and seed saving has begun (I mark an "X" on one per plant and when it turns golden yellow, it is ready for seed saving). We've grilled, roasted, made alla Norma, Baba Ganoush, Ratatouille, sliced and breaded and baked - we've eaten a LOT of eggplant and loved every second of it.

Peppers: I like to wait until they go their ripe color before harvesting. That's been the case with 18 of them, and we await the rest - 32 pepper plants in all. The six different Paprika peppers are all sweet - once they go red, I seed them, slice them and dehydrate them until hard - then grind them to make our own wonderful paprika. Tonight I made stuffed peppers (my own filling of black rice, lentils, cherry tomatoes, garlic, onions peppers, tomatoes, spiced with paprika, lime juice, chile power, red pepper flakes, cumin and oregano...yum!).

I continue to water at least once per day, and feed weekly. Some tomato plants are gone, some are going, most are thriving. All of the pepper and eggplants look great. I've made some new crosses between indeterminate varieties and dwarfs - up to 21 new leads for our dwarf project - and once the developing fruit ripen and seed is saved and dried, I test it to see if the cross took. So far so good - the first three are showing indeterminate seedlings. 

This is an interesting week - Tuesday is a lecture and tasting at the Flower Shuttle; Wednesday consists of a morning of photography for Eating Well magazine (article to run next summer), then taping for an upcoming Splendid Table, then an interview for the Milwaukee Journal.  

I just finished a blog for epictomatoes.com, and a newsletter - Sara will get those out soon. I will soon be working on presentations for Southern Season, Monticello, Seed Savers and Mother Earth News in Pennsylvania - all September events.  And I need to develop the proposal for my third book for Storey.

So, not all that much is going on, really!  I continue to have a great time - and always look forward to visits from gardeners, emails, questions - anything that continues to inspire me in my gardening efforts.