I’ve been writing a lot about my garden, but not much about the harvest. Well, it’s been kind of small so far… I expect that will change as we get into August. However, I have gotten to eat a few homegrown tomatoes, and some ground cherries, as well as plenty of apricots.
The first tomato I harvested was a Tommy Toe, which is a large cherry tomato.
These tomatoes are a large cherry tomato with firm flesh, balanced tomato flavor, and there is a creaminess to them that is just delightful. They are super delicious. I’ve harvested a half dozen of these tomatoes.
I’ve also harvested a half dozen or so of the Mexican Midget tomato. This was one of two plants given to me by my friend Alex.
This is a small cherry tomato, almost what I’d consider to be a currant tomato as far as its size goes. It’s small but packs a big flavor punch. So delicious. Their size is perfect for snacking, and when I see ripe ones out on in the garden, I usually just pop them in my mouth and eat them right there. Super tasty.
Apart from the tomatoes, ground cherries have just started to become available for harvest. They are ripe when their husk dries out (the texture reminds me a little bit of onion skin paper) and they drop onto the ground.
I think of ground cherries to be an old fashioned sort of fruit. It has an unusual flavor, kind of a combination between a tomato and a pineapple. The fruit are about 1/3 inches in diameter and they’re full of seeds, sort of like tomatillos (which they also look like, and are related to). Some people consider ground cherries to be much like the cape gooseberry.
They are delicious to snack on and also make good jam, so I’m told. I have a lot of them out there, so jam may be in my future.
The apricot tree also produced enough apricots for jam.
More on the jam later, which is quite delicious. I picked about 4 pounds of fruit, one pound of which was not usable (blemishes, mostly), but 3 pounds was just enough to make 4.5 pints of delicious apricot jam! It will be nice to have that taste of summer in the winter.
