Here we are in January and our Oasis Garden is still producing cherry tomatoes! In fact, we picked over 12 pounds of them this past month. They don't exactly look beautiful on the trellis anymore--most of the leaves have turned brown or fallen off. But, since we're still harvesting about a handful of tomatoes each day, I didn't have the heart to pull them out yet.
It's now been eleven months since I initially planted our garden. Right now, it looks barren in some areas and full in others. The seeds that I planted last month have all sprouted, but the new plants are still on the small side. Everything grows more slowly in the wintertime.
In the past month, we picked over 26 pounds of vegetables. We've now harvested over 232 pounds of vegetables since starting the garden last February!
And here's another milestone: for the first time, I successfully grew cauliflower! In prior years, I bought six packs of cauliflower at the nursery. When they matured, the heads were small and deformed. This year, I started the plants from seeds and they were perfect! The first head I harvested was purple and the second one was green.
When I saw the green head forming, at first I thought it was discolored. I was expecting white cauliflower. But, I pulled out the seed packet and sure enough it contained a mix of three types of heirloom cauliflower seeds--green, purple and white. The green head was more than twice the size of the purple one, but both were very yummy.
Meanwhile, the Brussels sprouts are finally coming along. Tiny purple blossoms are forming along the axils of the leaves.
Soon, each one will look like a mini cabbage. In prior years, when I tried to grow Brussels sprouts, they were plagued by insects (aphids, I believe). This year, there are no bugs-so far, so good.
We had friends over for New Year's weekend. I served several dishes made from our home-grown veggies. For lunch, I made "Dad's Stuffed Bell Peppers" (
www.simplyrecipes.com). Even though I had picked the peppers in early December, they were still fabulous. Home grown veggies last so much longer than the store bought stuff. To accompany our BBQ dinner, I made "Angie's Dad's Best Cabbage Slaw" (
www.allrecipes.com). I was looking for a coleslaw recipe that didn't have mayonnaise. Everyone loved it! I had also planned on making bruschetta with the cherry tomatoes. But, I placed the tomatoes on the counter in a large bowl. My guests ate them raw, before I had a chance to cook them. No one couldn believe we were growing such delicious cherry tomatoes in December! Finally, last night, with the green cauliflower, I made "Baked Whole Cauliflower" (
www.allrecipes.com). It looked beautiful and also tasted great!
Hopefully, by next month we'll be eating Brussels sprouts. Maybe I'll find a Brussels Sprouts recipe to post. Also, I'll be looking for recipes to use up those cherry tomatoes.