So I’ve been trying to come up with a solution for my tomatillos.  Those poor plants are thirsty all the time- no wonder, since they’re so massive!  It finally occurred to me to try watering them from the bottom up.  So I put each pot in a larger, shallower tote, and put water in the tote.  Slowly, the plants have been drinking, and they’ve been miraculously wilt-free and seem much happier.  Success!

But while I was toying with the tomatillos, I kept looking at my two Applegreen Eggplants in a pot.  Every day they seem to look worse and worse.  The Applegreens in the garden haven’t looked much better, but the ones in the pot were looking sad and weepy and brownish looking.  Meanwhile the Ping Tung eggplants are thriving… but I gave the Applegreens in the pot a good soaking the other day, removed some decaying leaves, and simply gave the plant a little attention, and voila! Today when I went out, I had to do a double take.  I figured later this week I could very well be pulling the plug on these guys- and not only are they thriving beautifully- they’re pushing blossoms!  I guess you never really know, and until the plant is dead and brown, there’s always a chance for revival!  Now I’m excited, because of the two eggplant varieties I chose, this was the one I was most excited about- the fruits are small like a green apple (hence the name, I guess) and like the Ping Tung, are sweet and seldom bitter.

I’ve also been meaning to take a picture of my fennel plant.  Slowly but surely it’s growing and taking shape.  I sure wish some of my other seeds germinated, because this fennel plant is making me drool.  I adore fennel- and I can’t imagine how wonderful it’s going to be when it’s fresh from the ground.  I’m going to have to come up with something special for this one!

I did get around to harvesting some of the kale.  I just went around the plants and removed the largest leaves- which ended up being quite the pile of kale.  I would love it if the kale still in the ground continued to produce, as a mountain of kale leaves cooks down to not so much.  All in all I ended up with about 2 cups of blanched kale to put in the freezer.  That’s not bad, really, and it was really easy to process.  I simply removed the tough stem from the leaves,coarsely chopped the leaves, and then steamed the leaves for 3 minutes.  Then I plunged the leaves into an ice bath to stop the cooking, and then to a colander to drain.  A few minutes later, I spread them out on thick kitchen towels and patted them dry- all in all, start to finish it took about 15 minutes.  I was thrilled when I dropped that one freezer bag off at the freezer.  I would love to be able to get a few more in there- but either way, there’s at least one package of kale, destined to become a soup or stew this winter.  Here’s the kale mountain:

And what it became:

In the next day or two, I will sadly be pulling out some lettuces.  They’re beginning to bolt, and are ready to be done.  I’m debating what the next step will be.  Possibly some more carrots for the fall, definitely a few more beets, and since I haven’t done any turnips yet, that might be nice to have too. I don’t know.  Depending on how much space there ends up being, maybe I should try more beans or peas?  Sigh.  Decisions, decisions.