Harvest Time

Autumn is great; time to get the sweaters out, anticipate a crackling fire in the fireplace, and reap the benefits of all the summer work.  But, when it’s time to gather and can, it’s like a tidal wave of work.  The weekend was spent in nonstop preparation for the winter.  I made 3 quarts of tomatillo sauce, 6 ½ quarts of tomato sauce, 4 jars of quince jam, two trays of dried quince pâte (It’s like a thick fruit bar without the cereal jacket.), and 4 jars of blackberry jam.  When it’s time, it’s time and sometimes that means a marathon course in the kitchen.  If not, the blackberries go moldy from a sudden rain storm, the tomatoes rot on the vine, and the quince get devoured by worms.

And what was Christophe doing the whole time I was toiling away in the kitchen?

Chopping wood because you don’t do that after it gets cold either.



1 bucket of tomatillos



This is one of three buckets, plus the onions and eggplant for the sauce.



So far, I've only gotten half way through the box of quince.

Finally, a finished product: cooling blackberry jam.





The 2012 Tomato Line-Up

I gave a run down last year on the tomatoes we planted, so I think it’s only fitting to give this year’s crop its props.  Here we go, in no particular order:

Gardener’s Delight:  (heirloom) Small and grows in bunches; very sweet.  They are also very productive.

Great White Beefsteak: (heirloom) Last year we got a plant from our neighbor, who thought she forgot seed them this year.  Luckily, she was wrong.  We have at least two in the garden.  Mild, sweet and has meat that can look like a peach.

Caro red: (heirloom) Another, “Opps, I forgot seed this”, but “wrong”!  We ate the first one last night and it was delicious.

Cornue des Andes:  (heirloom) Shaped like peppers, these tomatoes turn bright red and can be pretty heavy.  An excellent sauce and cooking tomato, but a little too mealy to eat raw.

Noir de Crimee: (heirloom) From the “purple” tomato family.  Excellent raw, thin skin, and lots of meat.

Prince Noir: (heirloom) Another purple tomato, but smaller than the Noir de Crimee. Rich and sweet.

Roma: Well-known Italian tomato use for sauces.  Many of my Roma seedlings got sick, so we only have two plants that I am fiercely coddling.

Russian: (heirloom) This is a very large, tasty, and juicy tomato.  These seedlings fared well, so we have many in the garden.

Beefsteak: Classic round, and red.  This doesn’t have as much character as some of the other tomatoes, but it works when mixed in sauces.

Tomatillos: This green Mexican tomato is used to make salsa verde.  I don’t like them raw in salads, which is how Christophe ate them until I came along.  They are very rustic and grow well with other plants.  I’ve never seeded them; they sprout from fallen fruit the previous year.

Inspiration

Red Sweet Onion, Yellow Patisson, Tomatoes: Gardener’s Delight and Black Prince, Basil

I love this time of year; well, I love this time of year besides the blazing, unforgiving, and constant heat.  I can walk into the vegetable garden with no idea of what I’m making for lunch and I can fill my basket with almost anything I’d like and I’m back in the kitchen with a plan.  It’s more than just having a menu idea; the vegetable garden is a place where I find ideas about my life beyond the kitchen.  I often sit on one of the stone walls in the evening and try to take it all in: the garden, the surrounding mountains and forest, and the setting sun.  I hone my future plans and realize what ones are worth keeping and what ones need to be modified.  Perhaps because it is the only green space for the moment, the various colors, or the appreciation I get from watching my seedlings grow into plants that tower over six feet tall, but the garden is a place where I find my inspiration.  I learn more about who I want to be and how to be a better person.  It is constantly changing, and I hope me too, for the better.

Pleasure of the Season: Waiting for the First Tomato

“Pleasures of the Season” is a series of posts which appear from time to time.  They focus on something special that occurs only seasonally, often fleeting, and something we anticipate.  The posts are sometimes food related, sometimes not, but highlight moments of what I’ve learned about living with the seasons since moving to Southern France.

Alright, I might be jumping the gun on this, but the pleasure of the season this moment is the first tomato.  This is a Black Prince and it a purple tomato variety, so it will magenta-purple when fully ripe.

Outside of herbs and berries, the garden has not yet produced anything, but I’m watching and waiting.  We have over 60 tomato plants this year, all started from seed.  We have a rough idea of what type of tomatoes we have, but we found a few surprises after planting.  We tried to save the garden terrace with the richer soil for the larger tomatoes, but discovered they got mixed up with some smaller varieties as seedlings.  Hence, I think we’ll have some hardy Gardener’s Delight (normally the size of cherry tomatoes), and perhaps some dwarfed Beef Steak.  The full low down will come when the results are in.

So, we wait for the first tomato to finish ripening.  Both Christophe and I have already plotted what to do with it, so its demise depends who gets to it first.

AVALANCHE!

Okay, maybe not, but it’s time to make sauce, and yes, those buckets are heavy.

Meet the lineup!

We have a lot of tomatoes in the garden, and sadly for the season, many of them are still green.  Due to the summerless summer, our tomato count is extremely low; normally, I’ve given up counting at this point of the year.  Each year, we plant our usual stock of tomatoes and each year we try a few new varieties.  This year’s lineup consists of eleven different varieties, ranging in color from white to purple, most of them are heirloom.  This year, we planted 70 different plants.

The Usual Suspects

Gardener’s Delight:  (heirloom) Most people assume these are cherry tomatoes when they see them, but they are not.  They are not acidic and teeter on the edge of being candy they are so sweet.

Noir de Crimee: (heirloom) So far, this is my favorite tomato.  The purple color throws you at first since it will never turn red to signal ripeness.  Thin skin, lots of meat, and best raw.

Prince Noir: (heirloom) Yet another purple tomato, but smaller than the Noir de Crimee.  It is sweet, rich, and also has a thin skin.

Great White Beefsteak: (heirloom) A large tomato that ripens to a golden yellow color.  Mild and sweet and we ate one yesterday that had a melon-like flavor.

Caro red: (heirloom) Big, round, and orange.  I like this tomato because it is very versatile and makes a complex sauce.

Cornue des Andes:  (heirloom) Shaped like peppers, these tomatoes turn bright red and can be pretty heavy.  An excellent sauce and cooking tomato, but a little too mealy to eat raw.

Voyager: This is a gnarly tomato that is a bit too acidic for my tastes.  It was tried last year and again this year for good measure, but will not be rejoining the line up next year.

Beefsteak: Classic round, red, and meaty tomato that is very productive.  Not as tasty as many of our other tomatoes, so I use it as volume in sauces.

The Newbies 

Roma: Well-known Italian tomato use for sauces.  Curious plants that don’t grow very high and fruit that grows in clusters.  Better for cooking than eating raw.

Russian: (heirloom) Our friend brought us one a few years ago and we kicked ourselves for not saving some seeds.  This is a very large tomato, very tasty and juicy. Has earned a spot on the “Usual Suspects” list for years to come.

Beefmaster: These are supposed to get huge, but they are nowhere near ready yet.  I do like the smooth, pale green skin they currently have.

And that our lineup this year, but as you can see, we’re still holding out for some sun and high temps to get them to where they need to be.  If not, I fear we’ll be swimming in green tomato jam all winter.

Late Spring Planting in the Garden



View of staked tomato plants from an upper terrace in the garden



In April, we planted potatoes and onions in our vegetable garden.  They go into the ground early because of their longer growing season and because they need the cool spring nights to get started.  They should be ready to harvest in just a few short weeks.  Last week, we finished the second stage of planation.  We have the usual suspects – tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, zucchini, and squash, alongside some herbs and berries, which are about to finish their production.

Our neighbor, Madame Gousse, starts all her plants from seed and years ago, would give Christophe the extra seedling that did not fit into her garden.  As the years went by, she simple began seeding more and more and now provides us with all our annual vegetables.  Depending how the seeds took, the amount of vegetables we have each year can vary, but it usually is in the neighborhood of 150 seedlings to plant.  In past years, we tackled this planation all in a single day.  At first, it was fun, but like many big projects there comes a time when the end seems too far away and the amusement of it has been zapped away.  We would drag ourselves back to the house in twilight wanting only a shower and a place to sit down.

Happily, this year is different.  We finally wised up and spread out the job over a few days.  We planted 10 different varieties of tomatoes, 70 in all, and got them staked up to new reeds Christophe cut down from the river bank.  Then, the next day, we finished with the rest of the plants.  And you know what?  The fun came back.  We found the pleasure of planting a garden again.  I know the garden is work; days will come when I am tired and I’ll come back to the house coated in sweat and dirt.  But I’m happy to re-find the anticipation of planting something with hopes of how it will turn out instead of just wanting the job to be done.