Harvest 2012: Provider Beans and Little Bells

Chicago absolutely fried earlier this summer, stopping much of the growth on all plants. But the weather's moderated and the harvest has been up and running in full force for the last several weeks. Even the second wave of tomatoes is coming in strong (after the first flowering was lost to nighttime heat), but more on that in another post.

Striking Chicago teachers wear red:

please support them

 

This summer we're singing the praises of these Provider bush beans from Bountiful Gardens. They've thrived in the heat and regardless how long they get (you always miss a few when picking) they're reliably tender. Other beans seem to set up their seeds earlier, so that this time of year the purple and yellow bush beans are more seed than good eating. Honestly this is my new favorite variety.

Provider bush beans

Picking lunch from the roof is one of the great joys of growing. Steamed Provider greenie beans with rooftop tomatoes and golden beets from the farmers market. That's a pretty typical summer lunch for us, with herbs and other seasonings.

Waiting for protein

Melons, eggplant, Jimmy Nardello and Little Bells sweet peppers plus a handful of tomats. Grab a knife and a fry pan and...lunch.

Love those Little Bells, from Wild Garden Seed. Check 'em out at the link: nice squat plants with small sweet peppers. They love growing in SIPs and this picture shows part of their color range.

Great pepper for northern climes with short seasons. Before fall's killing frost, we clip whole plants with remaining fruits attached, trim leaves and hang in a cool place. Fruit will continue to ripen on the stem for weeks.

All You Need Is Lunch

2012 summer is a lesson learning to be thankful for what we have. Like this perfect lunch box, picked from the roof a couple weeks ago...and many days since.

A definite shortage of tomatoes could make one mororse (OK, trust me it has), but there were serious weather reasons for it. We think the hellish heat early in the season caused tomato flowers to drop before fruiting occurred. As a result we missed the first round, except for a few early ones--Whippersnapper, Glacier, and Stupice among them--that somehow got established before being blasted.

Locally, my brother's in-ground garden and Debbie and Little Green Girl's tomats tell the same story: very low yields.

Eggs from Bruce's hens and a Jimmy Nardello pepper remind us: 

all you need is lunch

Plus, the eggplant are prolific, and beautifully so.

Two weeks ago it was nearly 100 degrees F again with enormous humidities. Today 79 and heaven. The tomatoes have set up a nice crop of flowers and fruit at last. Will they flourish in the late-season light? Stay tuned.

Undaunted by Extreme Heat: Tomtillos, Eggplant, Peppers, Melon (plus Yard-Long Beans)

 

It would be an understatement to say the roof garden was tested by the weather this summer, especially the weeklong string of 100+ degree F days, bringing temps to near 120 degrees F up on the roof. But the tomatillos thrived, getting big and fat (note coin for scale).

I now think the heat drove our tomatoes to near extinction, but we'll post separately on that. 

Today we're featuring roof-grown food in SIPs that thrived in 2011's extreme Chicago weather

Tomatillos
By the way, I learned something about why our tomatillos are so sweet from this site.

It's a key ingredient of Mexican salsa verde when harvested immature. When ripe, it turns from pale green to golden and the flavor is sweeter. 

Aha! Harvested immature for salsa. Too late for that and no wonder they're sweet enough for our raw fruit in the morning. Tomatillos grew like crazy in an earthbox and are now turning yellow. Time to harvest them all.

 

Eggplant
Eggplant have been producing steadily all summer, these pingtung long and Listada among them, apparently unfazed by the extraordinary heat.

Of the three kinds, I'll admit a preference for the long ones based on their incredible ease of preparation: slice lengthwise, saute in coconut oil two minutes a side over medium-high heat, and enjoy. Or chop and add herbs. Or miso. Or etc.

Peppers
I guess it's no secret peppers love heat. Some of our sweet peppers bear a circular brown spot at their tips, testament to the large hail that came over the July 4 weekend.

 Jimmy Nardello, hugely prolific

Carmen, excellent raw

or stuffed (last year w/refried beans and cheese)

Rooster Spur,

hot as the dickens

  

Little Bells, torn from the mother plant

by extreme wind

Melon
We're this/close to chilling and putting a knife to these...

This little icebox watermelon

is growing through its climbing grid

L to R: Rainbow sherbet, Golden midget, and not sure

Japanese icebox watermelon,

seeds from Debbie and Little Green Girl in a seed swap

Yard-long beans  

A fun variety we received via Debbie and Little Green Girl in our seed swap way back in February when it was ten below. These babies steam up nice and tender. They're flavorful...and a hoot to watch grow.

 

The jasmine, too, loves its SIP and is climbing our arch, scenting the roof garden beautifully.

 

I'm Worried, Aways in Love

The old Wilco tune comes to mind when I ponder my connection to growing food.  I started when I was 8, my first radishes igniting a slow-burn fuse on a lifetime love. 

(BTW, what was up with the draperies back then?)

 

Why worried? Because I am always in love with what we grow and, more specifically, with eating it. But again this year the tomatoes aren't right and it feels personal. More precisely, some tomatoes on our roof are just fine and others are sickly. I have 50 years of experience. What's the problem? (Clearly that's rhetorical until I post details.)

For now let's focus on Saturday breakfast from all the food that's thriving on the roof, despite hail, inches and inches of rain, high winds, and that week of 100-degree temps.

Jimmy Nardello peppers, a Santa Fe Grande pepper for heat, the pingtung long and Listada eggplants and Matina tomatoes. Plus a whole bunch of chopped basil from the six varieties out front.

Here's a rain/wind-ripped branch of peppers called Little Bells. We've had roughly 11 inches of rain in 11 days, with bucketfuls falling all at once. And wind.

We chopped these sweet peppers for the melange. The power keeps going out too, twice in one week (make that three times--it just went down again). Last night's power went mostly-but-not-all out: weirdly down to 41 volts, enough to kill air conditioner, computer, and fridge, leaving us in cocktail-hour light, which would have been fun, but it was hot and who wants to open the freezer at that point for ice. I'm lucky to live with a nice guy equipped with a voltage meter.

Eggplant slices go into the cast iron pan, already slick with a hot film of coconut oil. Toward the end, I'll sprinkle the tomato halves with kosher salt and lay them face-down into the hot cast iron to warm.

A nice miso sauce on top and that's a breakfast I love.

Maybe I shouldn't worry so much...about wobbly electrical grids and confounding weather, wondering if we could feed ourselves in the face of shortages. But I do.

First Harvest 2011: July 18 Eggplant, Tomato, Eggs

Midsummer color, maximum flavor...a feast for the eyes and the belly. Yesterday for lunch: fresh eggs straight from Bruce's coop, first tomatoes, and quick-fried eggplant.

  

Tomatoes were Matina, from Reimer Seeds,

small but perfect.

Crayola colored eggplant 

pingtung long (SSE) and Thai green (Bountiful Gardens)

The Thai green hid from me until I discovered it today. 

Bruce talked about his thriving coop yesterday. When we visited Sunday, his carton held a diverse selection.

It was so hot, we all needed needed a drink...

Derecho! and the July Roof Garden

The derecho that slammed Chicago Monday morning brought winds of up to 75 mph. Our summer 2011 weather had already featured pummeling hail, evidence of which can be seen on the tobacco leaf at upper right in this photo. 

Even the tough eggplant leaves show battle scars. Still, we feel lucky. While the derecho was over as quickly as it hit, it knocked out power to some 900,000 people. My sister north of Chicago remains without power three days later.

We made it through with a bunch of broken tomato leaf stems, despite my tying up our current crop more conscientiously than any previous year. I started this after early-season high winds snapped a Black Prince tomato in two at the main stem. The weather is weird, with string and scissors more necessary than ever.

On to some happier pix. Here's a Matina tomato (Reimer's Seeds) setting some nice early fruit. I love this tomato for our region. While larger fruit is nice, Matina's a reliable bearer...and always one of the first. Thanks to far-flung GRGer Russ for buying those first seeds.

A Valencia tomato (Johnny's Seeds) across the roof--click to enlarge. It's a beautiful thing to see fruit emerging from flower.

 Rampant tomatillos shading out the okra in the adopted earthboxes

Nice crop forming up.

Jimmy Nardello peppers.

Little bells peppers proliferating.

This year I brought a jasmine plant to the roof and put it in a SIP (center below). 

It took a while to establish but now scents the melon-pepper run like heaven. Remains to be seen if it will grow up the PVC arch I've guided it onto.

Here's our old friend agretti. Planted April 6, it's taking its time and I nibble judiciously, still hoping for seed for 2012.

The joker and jester lettuces from Wild Garden Seed are going to seed, and yet there's no detectable bitterness to the leaves. What a beautiful lettuce. Definitely growing it again next year.

The lettuce sits amongst the going-to-seed lineup.

Tomatoes are all flowering and moving toward fruit, though there's some leaf curl I'm not happy about (and I'm not showing you pictures of it either).

Pepper and melon run...

The cool-weather greens run, transformed to hold beans, tobacco, extra tomatoes, and Erik's Greek squash.

Once I knew a guy who said: What's lookin' good 'sides you, me, and the weatha?  It's a beautiful, moderate summer day. How's your garden growing?