Day 130 / Day 38 - Tomatoes Getting There...

So, as I know all you loyal reader and/or readers are dying to find out, here's what the tomatoes looks like today.


In honor of the Olympics going on now, I will give this guy on the right a gold...



This Red Heirloom on the left a silver...


And this Golden Harvest in the middle a bronze...


Now that all the plants are about an inch tall, it came time to the first milestone in the Aerogarden manual, which was to thin the seedlings so that there's only one plant per pod. Luckily, this wasn't a hard decision for two of the three pods--in fact, in both pods, the other seeds (I think they put at least 3-4 seeds in each) hardly came up.

In the other pod, though, it was a tougher decision. There was one large plant, but the second plant was going pretty strong. But for the greater good, I chopped the second plant and left the one. It was difficult, as I always want to hang on to all the plants, but like I said last time, it'll ensure that the one plant will get huge, will have room to grow, will get enough nutrients and water, and of course, will hopefully produce a lot of tomatoes.

The plants are definitely not growing as fast as the manual seems to think they're supposed to grow. It's day 38, which even with my poor math skills comes to about 5 weeks. According to the manual, the plants are supposed to be huge enough to have at least 5 branches to prune, and even should have flowers. But my little plants are still in the toddler stage.

No matter, I'll just let it ride and see what happens. Stay tuned.

In basil news, the other day I noticed the Add Water light was flashing and I realized that the resevoir was just about empty, but the plants still looked great. It's amazing how resilient these basil plants are.

In four days, the Add Nutrient Light will go off, and since I have no nutrients to add, I'll be retiring the Basil Aerogarden. While the Aerogarden manual tells you to throw out plants, stay tuned for the next blog, where I'll give a step-by-step of how to transplant Aerogarden plants into traditional dirt plant pots (donated by loyal reader P, to whom I am eternally grateful).

Day 120 / Day 28 - So...how are the tomatoes doing?

One of the devoted readers of this blog reminded me that I've forgotten to keep you up to date on the progress of the tomato plants.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are three thousand words:




They were slow to start, but they're really starting to take off. The little itty bitty seedling from July 24 was actually overtaken very quickly by its late blooming brethren

The next step will be to follow page 8 of the instruction manual and thin the seedlings once they're about an inch tall. This is the part I always hated when I grew an outdoor garden (I always wanted to hang on selfishly to all the plants), but just like with an outdoor garden, thinning the plants and leaving a single plant with enough room to grow will produce many more tomatoes.

Right now, there are three seedlings in the first pod, two in the second, and three in the third. So for the next few days it'll be a competition to see which seedling will be America's Next Top Tomato.

In basil news, the "Add Nutrient" went on last week, so I used the last two nutrient tablets. Thus marks the beginning of the end of the basil Aerogarden. Here's a five thousand word essay on what I did to commemorate this event:

Day 114 / Day 22 - Oh there ain't no bugs on me, there ain't no bugs on me...oh wait, my bad.

Now, as you've been reading the basil garden has been pretty much self-sufficient for some time now. A few days ago, I checked on it. I looked a little more closely, and I noticed there were tiny dots on the leaves. As an old "outdoor gardener", I pretty much knew what they were right away. The dreaded aphid.

For those of you who don't know about aphids, they are little critters the size of a pin that attach themselves to leaves and then suck and suck and suck the liquid so much they turn green themselves. That's right, aphids really suck.

I'd been expecting this day for a long time. The funny thing is, I'd taken precautions. I kept the Aerogarden far, far away from any of my houseplants, far, far away from any open windows, and even on the other side of the room as the other Aerogarden.

So, I can only imagine the amazing journey these little aphids made against all odds to get to my basil garden. I can imagine the adventrous band making the arduous journey a la Lawrence of Arabia through the Nefud Desert, crawling day and night in 90 degree heat over dry hardwood floors and glass coffee tables and electronics equipment to arrive at their destination--the oasis of green that was my International Basil garden.

Well, I pondered this fantastic accomplishment for a good ten seconds, and then I promptly took them to the sink and gave the basil leaves a nice long shower under the spray. The nice thing about aphids is that they're not very good at hanging on to leaves, so a nice little shower will send them all down the drain for good.

While I knew this already from my previous experience tending houseplants, I was actually quite impressed that the Aerogarden manual is so complete that it gives just the right advice for this situation. Admittedly, the first thing that crossed my mind was to invite a bunch of ladybugs in, who love munching on aphids (this is what I used to do when I had an outdoor garden), but of course, after that I'd have to invite a bunch of birds to munch on the ladybugs, and so on until I end up with an apartment full of goats.

During the basil bath, I ended up damaging a couple of the basil stalks, because the basil was really overgrown at this point. So I decided to do a massive harvest. I harvested four cups of clean leaves and washed them really, really well.


My once glorious Basil Aerogarden, of course, looked like this...somewhat like what my brother and I used to look like when our dad gave us haircuts as kids.

I decided to use a new recipe for pesto from Bon Appetit magazine, the main reason being it was the only recipe that called for four cups of basil. Among other things, the recipe calls for the pesto to be made in a blender.

I was skeptical at first, and ended up with this...

Then I was really skeptical. While it tasted good enough, it didn't look a thing like what pesto is supposed to look like, and the taste didn't compare to how great the original basil pesto recipe I used was. The word "pesto" in Italian means "pounded", not "liquified". Good thing for me to remember for the future.

Anyway, I think this was probably one of the last hurrahs for the basil Aerogarden. I figure a margherita pizza, maybe another tomato soup, and then I'll be retiring the basil and replacing it with something else.

Day 107 / Day 15 - Aerogarden Cherry Tomatoes all present and accounted for

It's Day 15 of the tomatoes, and happily, all three have finally showed up for the party.

In first red heirlooms pod, another new little seedling has joined the one that popped up a few days ago...a good thing, because the first one still doesn't look great. There's a single seedling in the golden harvest pod, and the third red heirloom has two very healthy-looking plants.

Right on cue, the "add nutrient" light lit up, and I put two new tablets in and refilled the water.

In other news, I harvested some more basil and made a very refreshing basil-banana smoothie!

Day 104 / Day 12 - Welcome to the world, little tomato

Well, guess who decided to show up today?

It's Day 12 for the tomatoes...5 days later than the seed pod said it'd show up, but this little guy seemed determined to make it into the world. Interestingly, Aerogrow puts a couple seeds in each pod, but in this case (as well as the golden harvest one), it looks like only one sprouted. Not necessarily a bad thing, because when they grow large, the instruction manual says to thin them to one plant a pod anyway, because they get so big.

This one still seems a bit frail, and time will tell if it will survive, but here's hoping the grow light will inspire some more growth.

In other news, I finished the tomato soup today. As with most soups, sitting in the fridge for a day or two really brought out the best in it.

Day 102 / Day 10 - What I Did With the Lime and Milk

Okay, so for all of you on the edge of your seats (you know who you are), here's what I did with the lime and milk.

After my experiment with lime-basil sorbet, I started to crave real good old-fashioned lime sherbet. So instead of going to the supermarket and buying a half gallon like most normal people, I brought out the ol' KitchenAid again.

I found this recipe:

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1057277

Notice how the recipe calls for three cups of half-and-half. Well, remember that I bought a big ol' container of heavy cream for my very healthy tomato soup. So, being the enterprising chef, I combined 1 1/2 cups of heavy cream and 1 1/2 cups of milk, and made 3 cups of half-and-half. The only other challenging part of the recipe was trying to get the lime zest with a cheese grater. I put all the other ingredients in my blender.

Now, I have a confession to make. I did this all yesterday, but made the foolish decision once again to start my ice cream freezing without first chilling the mixture, a no-no with the KitchenAid, especially on a 90 degree night. I ended up with lime sludge.

So, 24 hours later, with the mixture well chilled and the ice cream freezer attachment once again frozen solid, I started the mixing.

whirr...whirr...whirr...whirr...

Well, happily, I saw the liquid start to clump together, and before long, I had some amazingly refreshing lime sherbet.

I scooped it into mugs, covered them, and put them in the freezer.

Now, you might be wondering, why am I writing about this on my Indoor Gardening blog? Well, if you take a good look at that picture, you might notice a mint sprig I used as garnish. Yes, that is freshly snipped mint from my potted mint plant, which happens to have been transplanted from my old Aerogarden (the one that's now housing the cherry tomatoes)!

Speaking of the Aerogardens, the lights went off on my basil Aerogarden, so I used two more nutrient tablets and filled up the reservoir. That left me with only two precious nutrient tablets. So in two weeks, I'll have to decide whether to retire the basil to start a new crop, to try to transplant the remaining basil plants into soil, or to order more nutrient tablet and keep 'em going. Decisions, decisions...

Day 101 / Day 9 - Basil and Tomato Soup

Back on June 25, one of the regular readers of this blog (okay, the one reader...thanks P) suggested this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Rich-and-Creamy-Tomato-Basil-Soup/Detail.aspx

Of course, I'd been stuck because I didn't have a blender. That's changed, of course.

So, I went to the local King Kullen and bought four ripe tomatoes on the vine, a container of heavy cream, some milk, two limes, and some orange juice (don't worry, only the first two are for this recipe).

I proceeded to pick some fresh basil. The recipe calls for 14 leaves, but I picked about 20. In retrospect, I should have used a bit more.


Following the recipe's instructions, I chopped the tomatoes. I didn't bother to peel them (how the heck do you peel a tomato?). I simmered the chopped tomato in tomato juice for half an hour. Then, I put the mixture into my blender, along with the basil leaves:

Whirrr-whirrr-whirrr-whirrr.

Before you know it, I had a wonderfully pureed concoction, which I poured back into the pot. Then, I added a cup of cream and half a cup of butter (yes, you heard me right).

This is what I ended up with:

Being somewhat of a smart-aleck, I dug up a soup bowl I had that looked just like the one on the Web site, and added a little sprig of basil.

I took a few sips, and I was in heaven. It was the kind of soup that you know is soup. It's the kind of soup that you can feel going down smoothly and settles in your stomach with that warm, wonderful feeling you get on a cold winter's night. Okay, we're in the middle of a 95 degree heat wave right now, but you get the point.

The taste was phenomenal. Although one could argue that if you add a cup of heavy cream and half a cup of butter to anything, it'd taste good.

In case you're wondering why I bought milk and two limes...stay tuned to this same station tomorrow!

In other tomato news, some hope--the Golden Harvest tomato finally had one tiny little stem start to peek up through the foam in the pod...let's see if it has the steam to make it to pull-fledged plant. The other Red Heirloom is still not showing a thing :(