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.