Freezing Cherry Tomatoes. 16 Sept 2023.

 There have been lots of cherry tomatoes.  The most productive have been Reisentraube (red heirloom) and Golden Eagle Smiley (open pollinated dwarf, from Dwarf Tomato Project).

We like using cherry tomatoes to make the roasted feta cheese noodle sauce, which should work fine with frozen cherry tomatoes.

I froze up a batch of Reisentraube.  These are a bit bigger than other cherry tomatoes, but great flavor.

 Once frozen, they are like marbles and can be packaged into a gallon freezer bag.

I did the same with the Golden Eagle Smiley.

This is what the noodles looked like with a separate batch of Reisentraube tomatoes.  Before roasting...

After, with noodles added.

Green Bush Beans in a Half Barrel Container. 12 Sept 2023.

 After the ducks ate all of the bean plants in their yard, I planted some in an extra container.    I'm guessing there will be a pound of beans when I pick them soon.

There will be more in a few weeks, from the last, much bigger, planting.

Honeybees on Hypericum and Sedum. 12 Sept 2023.

 The sedums are covered with bees.  Both honeybees and the tiny pollinator bees.  The sedum is always popular with bees.

The tiny bees don't show in the photo, but there are lots of them.  

I haven't planted these hypericums yet.  The front border still needs some cleaning up first.  Meanwile they are still growing and blooming in their containers.

Repotting More Bearded Irises and Some Carnations. 12 Sept 23.

 I'm continuing to dig out bearded iris clumps, cleaning them up, and planting the best rhizomes in containers.

There are also some carnations that I grew last year.  They bloomed but never thrived.  I think it was bad potting soil.  Still, they survived the winter, spring, and summer again.  I decided to clean them up and repot.

As they were.

I dug out the four plants.

Cut off dead stems and scraggly stems, and hosed off as much soil as I could.

Planted three into one large container, and one in a smaller container.

I don't know if they will grow and thrive next year.  That's part of the fun.

Tomato Pie. Apple Pie. 9 Sept 2023.

 These are some of the last crop of dwarf tomatoes, "heirloom type" although not all are actually heirloom.  

I also still have a lot of the Gravenstein apples, although they go bad rather quickly.  

So I made pies with both.

I substituted cake flour for about 1/3 of the all purpose flour in the crusts.  It did make them more flaky (mission accomplished!) and they tasted so good!  But for the blind baked cruse (tomato pie), the bottom cracked and the sides flopped in a bit.  The flavor was still wonderful.

This time, I used a Mexican style shredded cheese mis for the tomato pie.  That was excellent.   I also used home made mayonnaise in the cheese mixture.  The topping includes some chopped Jalapeños.