I’ve been visiting and working in the garden at Greeley Park every two or three days during the past couple of weeks.

This morning’s 6:30 am visit was quiet, with the exception of the crickets chirping (it definitely sounds like August when the crickets chirp quietly in the morning!) Oh, and I may have been overheard cursing every time that I picked a tomato that had blossom-end rot.

Thankfully, today was the first day that I picked more good tomatoes than bad ones. It seems that the blossom-end rot only affected the early fruit that set up on the vines when the weather was fluctuating between very dry and very wet in early June.

The consensus (from all of the self-proclaimed gardening experts who feel the need to weigh in on this topic) is that since only one type of tomato was affected, there was something wrong with the actual plants not being able to take in enough calcium during the early part of the growing season. Affected are the Polish Linguisa heirloom tomatoes. Polish Linguisa is paste variety of tomato that I had success growing in containers in my backyard the past two seasons.  The Sweet Cherry 100s and Brandywines are doing great and there should be a full harvest in about a week. (I have so many great tomato recipes, but honestly, I look forward to a simple BLT sandwich with at least one of them!)

After picking some pretty good looking tomatoes,  as well as finding a few pieces of broccoli, about 10 string beans, and a few dozen (more!) seranno chili peppers (I think I’ve picked over 200 the past three weeks!), I checked on the brussels sprouts.  Here’s how they looked a few weeks ago.

Brussels sprouts are supposedly better after they have been touched by frost, so I was not anticipating that they would be ready until late September or early October.

I was delighted to discover that today was the day for the first brussels sprout harvest! This a veggie that my grandfather tried over and over to grow in his own garden without success.  I’m thinking that he may have paid too much attention to them because I did almost nothing and am seeing great success this summer! They just needed some organic compost (created in my own backyard with chicken poop from my neighbor’s five hens) and a few sprays of organic Neem (to keep the moths and catepillars at bay).

Since I didn’t  have my usual gardening tools with me to cut off the stalk of the plant this morning (I went to the garden just to pick a few cherry tomatoes and the brussels sprout harvest was not on my radar for today), I simply snapped off most of the leaves and pulled the plant right out of the ground (well, it actually took a few good tugs).  Surprisingly, the shallow roots weren’t very resistant for a plant with such a big, heavy, sturdy stalk .

There were 46 (my lucky number this year!) brussels sprouts on this stalk – each had to be cut off individually with a tiny knife. While removing them, I realized that this is one of the reasons why this veggie is so costly, it’s very time consuming to harvest!  A few of the sprouts were size of peas and marbles, but a lot were the size that good brussels sprouts should be…like ping-pong balls.

There are still five more brussel sprout bushes in the garden….they look like they need another month or so to continue growing and will be ready to harvest close to when the first frost is expected in NH.  (That harvest may bring over 200 more brussel sprouts….probably all at once!)

Funny thing about brussels sprouts — you either love them or you hate them!  I have just as many friends who give me a disgusted (yuck!) look when I mention this year’s crop, as I do brussels sprout favorable (yum!)  friends who are expecting “their fair share” of sprouts….soon.

Today’s crop  will be shared (fairly) at tonight’s dinner table with  the gardeners who planted, watered, weeded and kept the bugs away from them. The sprouts will be roasted with extra virgin olive oil and just a touch of sea salt and a twist of fresh cracked pepper.  (Yum!)