Two red tomatoes today! Sarah at the store got one, I’ll have the other with dinner.

They’re the ones all the way to the right. I looked at the tag, but forgot the variety on the way upstairs.
I know they’re from Silver Heights Farm Nursery, and that I put them in on Memorial Day. I bought them at Union Square market, and it was the leggiest specimen there.

That seems to be how the plant looks, though. I just looked at the Silver Heights catalog, and think it might be the Silvery Fir Tree Tomato. (All organic nursery! Yay! And lovely ladies working there too.)

Something is eating the leaves of the red flowering beans. I turned over lots of leaves looking for the culprit, but couldn’t find anybody. Lots of cut leaf margins, and a couple vinelets stripped wholly of leaves: could it be ants?

I went to the Center for Urban Pedagogy’s Goo Gone event the other day about the nomination of the Gowanus for Superfund status. Very well presented and attended. It did, however, put the fear into me about toxins that I might inadvertently be putting into my garden.

While my containers are all fresh new soil, I have been composting weeds and giant trees and grape offal that sprout from the actual soil between the cracks in the patio. Calls to CHEJ and a soil lab they recommended up in Boston have eased my mind a little, but they recommended testing for sure. Steven Lester at CHEJ pointed out that the fruits are most likely fine, as plants have a barrier that prevents heavy metals from being taken up from soil and deposited into their fruits, and that the larger molecules of concern (PCB’s and PAH’s, in this neighborhood) are too large to get taken up by most plants. He warned me that there are, however, some plants better at uptake than others. Thus, testing is a good idea, if only because dust and loose stuff from Gowanus could be blowing around the neighborhood.

I hope to hear from the labs on Monday. In the meantime, I will wash all the produce I eat, steer clear of the greens until I know more, and assume the best case.

Half a pound of various beans harvested. Paul has the camera, so no pictures today.
The scarlet runner beans seem to be a different variety than I’ve grown before. Rather than all purple beans, they are green flecked with little purple stripes. I am a fan. The yellow beans (no idea of variety) are long, flat, fuzzy and very sweet. Also, first squash and cucumber blossoms opened today. The spiky vine growing out of the composter identified itself with blossoms today: it’s a squash! Bees were making time with it today, so soon we will know what kind of squashlings have volunteered.

Today’s harvest is the last of the peas, First Beans (!), rosemary, chives and thyme to take to a party. In addition, I’m bringing bounty from the Borough Hall farmer’s market: Eightball Zucchini, sweet potatoes, garlic scapes, red spring onions, beets and more for grilling.

Everything local, and everything gorgeous. I have more pics of yard, but it’s been raining a lot a lot (26 of last 28, I believe). So not much fruit, but much greenery. Hopefully, July will dry out some.

The herb stairs are very pretty, and the Lemon Balm is ready to have balmy babies, so let me know if you want some.
Happy 4th!