the things we learned

We learn from our mistakes right? Here are a few of our lessons from this growing season. 

 Our thumbs our getting greener every day.

We learned that we despise the white butterfly. It lays tiny eggs on our plants. Then the eggs turn into caterpillars and eat our veggies.

Luckily they were mostly into the Nasturtiums. I spent a lot of time picking the little green caterpillars off. It was actually strangely therapeutic. We equally dislike the aphids and white fly!

We learned that the tomatoes should probably be planted behind the Zucchini.

We learned our Hyacinth needs more soil to florish. And probably more light. We planted them in the middle of our circle of peas. The idea was that when the peas died off we would pull them down and have a beautiful purple hyacinth vine to look at. No such luck.

We learned that peppers,

eggplants

and watermelon need to be started much sooner.

 There is always something to learn in the garden.

the little tomatoes

I will admit I do feel a little guilty writing about the tomato glut in our garden while my some of friends and family are experiencing yet another snow storm!
I guess I will get over it. You do all live in Minnesota. And it is only March. Winter is only half over!
So back to the cute little tomatoes.
We planted 10 different varieties of tomatoes this year. 6 small ones and 4 big ones. 2 of the smaller ones were late getting started, so we have yet to meet  Green Grape and  Red Figs.

I would like to introduce you to Yellow Pear,  Isis Candy Cherry, Riesentrauble, and Currant.
They all taste like, well, tomatoes!

We have been eating lots of salads, we have dried some in the dehydrator, made some chutney. And given oh so many away.

The Currant ones in the second photo are slightly insane. The plant itself is all over the place. It is impossible to keep it contained. And the amount of sweet little fruit on it is amazing.No matter how many we eat or give away or preserve I always have 2 or 3 mug fulls in the fridge.

Sadly Riesentrauble got too heavy for its own good. The bottom photo is of the tomatoes I found on the ground today when a branch broke off the Riesentrauble plant. The branch had 87 tomatoes on it! Yes I counted.

I am in the middle of a batch of green tomato chutney.