Anyone want some veggies?

Things are exploding in the Scott Farm. I pulled out about 18 cucumbers this week. I'm giving them away. Cherry and Grape Tomatoes are ripening left and right and I have to say, they are one of the best things you can grow. There is nothing like a vine ripened tomato. It makes me look at store-bought ones with disdain, "What the hell ARE you?"

They certainly aren't the sweet babies I'm pulling out of my garden. I'll post some pics soon of this sexy harvest.

I'm just happy this Zero-Year garden has produced a-plenty despite incessant fungus, disease, bug and weather attacks. I'm so emboldened, I'm already looking towards next year when I'd like to plant double of what I did this year...except maybe fewer cucumbers this time.

This and That

Brief update with a hodge podge of little tidbits for your gander. Or something.

Just had a delicious home made eggplant parmigian, using of course my own eggplant. My mother in law cooked it up nice.

Hot peppers are slow to mature. In fact, I have yet to see a red one. It hasn't prevented me from picking the biggest one and chopping it up into an omelet once in awhile though.

I also had tonight a strange concoction of fat free yogurt, cucumber, garlic and mint (as far as I remember) all chilled. Good little appetizer my father in law whipped up. I have so many cukes I have to find ways of giving them away.

Speaking of cukes, I went into Shaws this past weekend and saw an "Organic" aisle in the produce section. I was staggered to see two cukes, roughly the same size as mine, wrapped carefully in cellophane. Two of them. For $3.99. Mine are organic, and if I could sell them at that price I wouldn't need a full time job anymore! Who pays $2 for a cucumber? An insane person, that's who, and I'm just the guy to provide it for them.

...and then they appeared.

Suddenly everything is producing veggies at once. Two plants in particular are the hot peppers and cucumbers. I have two cukes in the fridge now, and another 4 ready to be picked by tomorrow. I made a garlic pepper omelet this morning with a 7" hot pepper from the garden, and my mouth feels like I swallowed lava. When they say these portugal hot peppers are "fiery hot", they weren't exaggerating...and I have a pretty high tolerance in the scofield department. I grilled them up first with a little olive oil, salt and garlic before adding the egg.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to have to decide what to do with all the excess veggies. I'll eat what I can, but when I have a dozen peppers sitting in my fridge I'd have to be a little loco to find a way to eat them all. I'm sure I'll find some people who'd love some fresh cukes, peppers and tomato's.

Next year, I plan to explore a goal I made when I first started this endeavor. Network with others in the neighborhood that have gardens and trade excess veggies and fruit for items we don't have. I've already met a couple just from working in the garden when they've passed by while walking their dog, so next time I'll see them I'll broach the subject.

*Dr. Wilbert Scofield developed the Scofield Scale to determine how hot a pepper is. A typical jalapeno pepper is 2,500-5,000 Scofields and is considered "Medium", while a "Habanero" pepper can range from 100k to 325k. Better to have some painkillers nearby when chomping into one of these bad boys.