I really have no idea why eggplants are called eggplants. Anyone want to Google that for me and let me know?

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This heirloom tomato variety, Kellogg’s Breakfast (aka KB), is wonderful. Great flavor, nice size, awesome color, and seems to be producing rather well considering it’s large size. The leaves are showing signs of fungus, but so are all the other varieties we are growing this year. I need to experiment with plastic for mulch to see if that keeps the fungus away. Each year we usually choose different tomato varieties, but this one is a keeper.

Here is a little eggplant + tomato dish we have been enjoying lately.

1. Slice eggplant – enough to cover the bottom of your pan/dish
2. (optional) Microwave eggplant to soften @ 6 minutes (this speeds up cook time), dump out any water
3. Arrange eggplant on bottom of pan
4. Add a layer of basil leaves
5. Add a layer of tomatoes
6. Add a little olive oil on top
7. Bake for about 20 minutes
8. Top with mozzarella/parmesan cheese and continue baking until cheese is toasty and/or eggplant is thoroughly cooked

Anne says she could eat this every day and never be tired of it. It is good, but we have beans and cucumbers to eat too.

I knew I would be spending a little time today picking beans. I actually spent quite a bit of time searching for the stealthy little legumes. What is a legume? I mean, what constitutes legumeness?  I’ll have to look that up later.

We planted quite a few beans this year. I had somehow found myself with four different varieties and thought I ought to try them all and before I knew what happened, I had planted just about all of them. Anne announced she likes beans at some point, so I felt justified. The variety above is Dragon Tongue – a bush variety with purple and yellow/white splotches. It’s a good one.

The seed catalog also enticed me to spend my dollars on some attractive eggplant varieties. The most unique is the Turkish Orange. We grew Bambini eggplant a few years ago, another small variety. I didn’t much care for it. This Turkish Orange is a little bigger, more orange and just great. We’ve enjoyed a few eggplant parmesan already.

And then there are cucumbers. You can’t really tell from the photo below, but the basket on the right is full of cucumbers. Why in the world did I need to plant so many cucumbers? Once again, I am a sucker for varieties. The burpless is a favorite, so I had to have some of those. Anne wanted some of the lemon variety we planted last year, and then I thought it would great to plant some for pickles. The pickling variety is pictured below next to the lavender touch eggplant (also very good). I ought to be picking these cucs a bit younger. Their size and abundance was a surprise this morning.

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Most gardening books and seed packets will suggest planting for the least amount of re-planting. It makes a lot of sense. It saves soil, time and effort. It also likely produces less shock on the fragile seedlings. But in the Midwest and north, Winter is long and boring. If you glance back a few posts, you can see I gave in and started some veggie seeds in late February. With this jump start on the season, it becomes necessary to have lights, a good watering ethic, and eventually the resources to manage potting on.

Potting on becomes a very quiet, meditative experience. There is a certain rhythm to it. I can’t claim to have actually found that rhythm. I have always been a bit rhythmically challenged. Still, it was a day spent with dirt and sun, and that was nice. I did find myself a little bored toward the end of the day, but I potted on over 30 eggplant, over 50 tomatoes, and several peppers. Have loads more to go, but ran myself out of room.

That’s the other thing you need when potting on – space, and lots of it.

I enjoy harvesting. It typically means eating is just around the corner. But I always feel a twinge of sadness and worry. The sadness, I think, stems from the impending finality of the season that harvesting marks. And I worry the produce will fail to live up to tasty expectations. The acorn/winter squash was especially nerve-racking since it is hard to know if/when it’s ripe. It isn’t winter yet, so it seems a bit premature, but we were not disappointed at all. And with enough butter and brown sugar on top, who cares if it’s ripe! The eggplant is a white variety, so that one is ripe.

Another sure-not-to-disappoint are the cucumbers. I’ve been taking these along with raw beans in my lunch this week. And I think I mentioned this before, but the cucs are a burpless variety. I’ve never noticed that regular cucumbers cause me to burp, but these certainly do not. Perhaps it’s just a marketing gimmick. Seed stores would probably sell more if they labeled everything burpless. Burpless corn, burpless watermelon, burpless greens… When faced with the decision to buy burpy or burpless variety, who wouldn’t buy burpless?!

More on the way. I froze most of the remaining kohlrabi – we shall see how that turns out. Also picked a large turnip last night, along with some potatoes, fennel and carrots. I don’t think I will be planting turnips of this variety again. Not my favorite.