Our Square Foot Garden Update #8: Goodbye Tomato Plant, Hello Bok Choy, Lettuce and Peas

by Melissa on September 2, 2012

It’s been 3 weeks since my last garden update, and a lot has changed.

Last time, I was ready to pull our our tomato plant because it had fallen over, and I couldn’t get it to stand up again.  However, Facebook readers urged me to try to prop it up.  My son and I did finally get it half propped up, but most of the tomatoes I could harvest were split and nasty, so this weekend, I decided enough was enough.  My son and I stripped all of the green tomatoes off (all 317 of them!) and then embarked on a 10 minute battle to get the tomato plant untangled from the tomato cage so we could use it next year.  I have to say, we were miserable failures at growing zucchini and cucumbers, but our cherry tomato plant rocked this year!  I am definitely planting one of those next year, if not two.

Our hot pepper plants are exploding, and our green peppers are coming along nicely.

We planted about 14 pea plants for our fall garden, and I am impressed by their growth so far.  I also planted bok choy, and about half of what I planted has come up.  The lettuce I planted in August never took, so after we pulled up the tomato plant, we planted lettuce seeds.  We will see if they come up.

In the 21 days since my last report, we were able to harvest the following:

Zucchini:  0 (all plants were pulled up)

Green Peppers: 13

Red Peppers:  2

Hot Peppers: 31

Cucumbers:  0 (all plants were pulled up)

Tomatoes:  465 (including the 317 green ones that I am hoping will all ripen)

Onions:  1

For the entire season, we have gotten the following produce from our garden:

Zucchini:  15

Green Pepper:  15

Red Pepper:  11

Hot Peppers:  60

Cucumbers:  25

Tomatoes:  818

Onions: 1

If you are gardening, how is your garden doing?

I shared this post at the Homesteader Blog Carnival.

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Maddie September 3, 2012 at 3:46 am

Mark Bittman’s “How to cook everything vegetarian” Has a recipe for green tomatoes. I think it is for green ketchup or maybe it was for green tomato chutney. I can’t remember which. I may try it for my many green tomatoes. Just a thought…and if you do try the recipe maybe you can post a review?

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Melissa September 4, 2012 at 5:25 pm

Thanks for the suggestion. If they don’t turn red, I’ll look up his recipes.

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jenny September 3, 2012 at 5:15 am

http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com/2009/10/first-frost-green-tomato-jam.html

I had a lot of green cherry tomatoes one year- this recipe saved me- it was so good! It was good as an app with creamcheese and crackers- or just eating by the spoonful….

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Melissa September 4, 2012 at 5:23 pm

Sounds yummy. If they don’t turn red, I will use them this way. :)

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Andrea September 3, 2012 at 8:58 am

If you put the green tomatoes upside down on a windowsill they should be ripe in about 7-10 days :)

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Melissa September 4, 2012 at 2:23 pm

Thanks. We have put them in the windowsill, and they are ripening nicely. It is nice to know they won’t go to waste.

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