Radishrain

I tasted some Noire de Crimée tomatoes with BER, on 3 Aug 2019. They were good, but the taste was a lot milder and more normal than I would have expected from what others say about it and Black Krim. Maybe the shade from the neighboring plants lesseed the flavor.

There are ripe ones without BER.

Fruit size is about that of Matina and Moravsky Div. Edit: Because they were golfball-sized and round instead of large beefsteaks; they were probably a cross.

I prefer the stronger, smokier taste of the Paul Robeson tomato.

heirloom_tomato

Here are some Black Beauty fruits, this year. I'm not sure if this is a cross or not, since it has different growing conditions, this year. The definite cross showed no anthocyanin; so, that has me thinking this might be true-to-type.

I grew it in 2017 where it waited until the end of the season to put out a whole bunch of large (much larger than these in 2019), fine fruit (most didn't ripen on the plant), with much blacker skin. They were a smooth beefsteak shape, or oblate perhaps.

This year, the fruits have less anthocyanin and are significantly smaller, and rounder. They taste about the same (maybe sweeter), but have softer texture. I used black plastic, this year, but not in 2017.

Here are some of this year's fruits:



heirloom_tomato

I'm growing two Mustard Bhutlah plants. One of them has black on its leaves and fruits. It started out having a lot of black, but soon a lot of the black dissipated. The stems and branches are black, except on the lower half of the plant. One of the fruits appears to be all black. I discovered that it had set five fruits by 13 Aug 2019. It seems to have fewer flowers per node than the other Mustard Bhutlah, but it does have multiple flowers on some nodes.

The anthocyanin plant is producing before the other plant. I'm pretty excited that it has fruits. I should be able to grow it again next year (without taking cuttings). My Mustard Bhutlah's are the only C. chinense peppers to have flowered. I have some Habaneros growing, but they've been stunted.

Anyway, of this species, I only plan to grow Mustard Bhutlahs next year.

Make popcorn with oil and put Tajin seasoning on it. It's awesome.

Tajin seasoning is made from salt, cayenne pepper, and limes, I believe.

recipe_

Ingredients:

* 1 long Kikinda Competition Strain edible gourd (at least a couple inches in diameter), sliced
* The equivalent of about five medium-sized tomatoes, cut up
* Lots of summer savory, both leaves and stalks (if you don't think it's too much, it's probably not enough)
* Parsley
* Cayenne pepper
* 3 Aji Habanero peppers, cut up, including the calyxes
* Onion powder
* Black pepper
* A fair amount of Tajin seasoning
* Avocado oil
* Cheddar cheese

Oil the pan with avocado oil.

Other than the cheese, mix the rest of the contents into a 15" cast-iron skillet. Bake it uncovered at 500° F. for about 40 minutes. Yes, that is not too hot for the gourd.

When the time is nearly complete, add cheddar cheese to melt on top.

Let sit for a little while before eating.

The result tastes much like lasagna. There's a lot of umami flavor in it.

Warning: The lack of garlic is purposeful. It is not needed. If you use garlic you didn't use my recipe. Just for the record, I like garlic, and it may or may not go well with gourds, but in my opinion, it does not go well with squash unless it is cooked separately and mingled in after cooking. Yes, I know that the gourds in this recipe are not squash, but I also know they're related to squash.

recipe_
pepper_
cheese_
onion_
avocado_
black_pepper
parsley_
summer_savory

Here's a recipe I used, which I liked (it tastes awesome and is great on burritos in place of salsa):

    ~1 gallon of blended up raw peppers (mostly Jalapenos); I added a little filtered water to help blend them (but you might want to use some of the vinegar below instead)
    3 cups of distilled white vinegar
    4 to 6 tablespoons of pickling salt (6 might be too much for it to ferment properly, but I don't remember how much I used)
    Some cardamom (I didn't measure)

Stir everything together and boil it for 20 to 40 minutes (my peppers were old—that's why I cooked them, and that's partially why added vinegar and probiotics). Let it cool until it's warm enough for probiotics to live (I just waited until it was cool enough not to hurt when I held the pot). Add a probiotic starter (since it's been boiled and doesn't have natural ones). I added about 3 billion organisms per quart, and there were three quarts at this point (the probiotics were in the form of chewable probiotic wafers containing L. acidophilus and B. lactis).

Put in jars and ferment. I put a tight lid on it with a silicone seal, without an airlock, and just watched (felt the lid for pressure) it to see if it needed burping. It didn't need it very often (my hypothesis is that it's because of acetic acid bacteria in the vinegar), if at all, actually, but eventually, the sauce fermented (the sauce in the cooler location took a lot longer than the one in a warmer location). If you open the lid to taste it, be sure to stir it before you put the lid back on.

The warmer jar tasted fermented after about seven days, but it tasted a lot better the day after I first tasted it (after I opened the jar; opening the jar at some point to taste and stir it seems to encourage faster fermentation).

recipe_
pepper_
ferment_
vinegar_
cardamom_

My mom makes very frittata-like omelets. We call them omelets, anyhow. I decided to try to make one today, for the first time. I don't know exactly how she does it, but I guessed to fill in the gaps, and I think I'm right, because it turned out well. Yes, I used ingredients my mom wouldn't have, however.

Here's what I did:

* I put avocado oil, seven eggs, chives, and a sliced Farmer's Jalapeno, in an eight-inch Lodge cast-iron skillet.
* I cut up some tomatoes and cheddar cheese
* I put the oven on broil (high).
* I started cooking the eggs on the stovetop
* I added Gel brand fajita seasoning to the eggs
* When the eggs were mostly cooked, I put wonderberries and the tomatoes on top, and the cheese on top of everything else.
* I put the pan in the oven (not right at the top, but closer to the top than the bottom) to broil until the cheese was good and cooked.
* I let it sit for a bit.
* I ate it.

It tasted excellent. I highly recommend it, especially with my Brandy Boy cross F2 tomatoes.

frittata_
recipe_
tomato_
cheese_
chives_
pepper_
egg_
chicken_

The turban melon split open, probably a while ago by the look of it. I started fermenting the seeds and used the rest to enrich soil, since it seemed unsafe to eat. I'm fermenting the seeds since they have a whole lot of gel. Since that trait seems recessive my plant probably isn't a cross (unless it crossed with Kirkman). I'm not sure that the flesh is as white this year, though.

Many of the seeds, especially at the stem end, were not the usual shape. The turban part was chalk full of seeds.

Here's a picture of our largest watermelon to date, this season (I'm guessing it's 17lbs; there are some potential contenders). It's not huge, but it's large for our garden. It has pink flesh and black seeds. It may, or may not, have a winter watermelon in its ancestry.

This was one of the first ripe watermelons, this season. I had it in the refrigerator for a while. It was good, but not super sweet or anything. A little under-sweet, but definitely still good. It may have had more flavor and sugar if grown in another spot, I'm guessing. It's near where the Coldset tomato was last year (which didn't have a lot of flavor there, either, although the fruits got large and nice).

I grew Honeycomb F1 last year and saved the seeds (at least one of which got cross-pollinated by Torpeda). I grew the cross-pollinated seed this year, and it grew these two fine fruits, which were quite striped earlier in the season. They slipped from the vine when ripe, surprisingly. I don't recall either of the parents doing that.

Anyway, it has a very small seed cavity! I'm impressed. It has the watermelon-like texture that Torpeda had, except somewhat softer. The flavor is very intense and rich. It's one of the best melons I've ever had! Extremely sweet, too. I like how many of the seeds don't have lots of gel (some of them do). The stripes are dominant. The flesh texture is dominant. Honeycomb's flesh color seems dominant (Torpeda was coconut white).

The one I cut open and tasted was the smaller of the two (I had just eaten a lot of watermelon). I put the bigger one in the refrigerator.

The fruits are maybe about six inches long. Maybe 4-7lbs or so.