This year has been a doozy for Northern Californian gardeners. Winter was long. Spring was uncharacteristically wet. And summer seemed to lag by at least a month.

The result?

I didn’t have ripe tomatoes until after August 1st this year. Typically, ripe tomatoes are a July 4th treat and by the time August rolls around, I’m knee deep in tomatoes that need to be canned, dried, and gifted.

But not this year. The first real harvest of the year was the typical size, but it didn’t come until the second week of August:

And, the next week’s looked like a typical haul from the second week in July, not the third week in August:

Even the garlic bulbs were smaller than normal this year:

But, despite the late bloomers, we’ve finally started enjoying some of my favorite summer meals. Big salads of mixed veggies like this one (broiled eggplant, baked corn (a gift), baked squash, fresh red onions, fresh tomatoes, and balsamic vinegar and chevre).

Now that’s a summer garden treat.

Due to living part-time in the Seattle area and part-time at home for 3 months, I haven’t had the time to garden as much as I would have liked. Law? Lots of time for that. Tech? So much I don’t quite know how to process it. But Garden? Well, the Garden took a bit of a back-seat for the months prior to last frost.

Of our 8 garden beds, only 5 are planted (and some not fully). At this time of year, that’s a waste of resources.

But, I have experience on my side. While I know I am wasting space that collects amazing sunlight and could be used to grow beautiful California plants, I also know that each one of those plants sucks the resource of time.

And, if I am honest with myself, I didn’t have enough time to properly prep all of the beds even before the plants need attention. Too many travels. Too much work. So, this season, I am focused on proper execution in the garden. Maximum quantity of quality within the constraints that I have.

Again, my garden is a perfect metaphor for one of the cycles in start-up life (when you could do more, but it would suck time and/or nutrients from other things that don’t have enough to support them unless you scale back for a season).

The tomato seedlings post-planting:

The eggplants (the big one will be asian purples, the small one below it is a breed of white/pink mini-eggplants):

And, of course, the peppers:

Habanero, Hungarian Carrot, Jalapeño, Caribbean Red Hot, & Anaheim.

Already, the investment is starting to show returns. The tomato plants are dark green and easily triple the size shown in the photos above, eggplant fruits are showing, and the peppers are already flowering. Also, several cucumber plants and squash plants are spreading their hungry vines in search of sun. Even with perfect weather, it will not be the biggest harvest I’ve ever prepared, but it is clearly focused on the most high value benefits (e.g. those that produce the most to eat where the taste differential between the garden and the store is the highest).

Thank goodness for learning from the past — this summer/fall harvest is destined to be quite good despite requiring about 1/2 the effort of prior years.

Summer’s first harvest is always some type of squash. This year, we didn’t grow the Zucchini Romanesco, which is sad, because it’s such an amazing producer (see last year’s huge fruit that kept growing and growing in our weeks of neglect):

But, we did grow some yellow summer squash that are producing like mad:

And, our first tomato harvest was a welcome addition to the kitchen:

Especially the crazy megabloom sweet horizon (it must have been 2 pounds, at least):

The next week’s harvest was almost double:

And, most importantly, we finally had enough ingredients to make the first garden Gazpacho of the summer:

Yummmm….

On May 5, 2010, The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a complaint with the FTC regarding Facebook’s privacy practices (or lack thereof).

The biggest two complaints, to my reading are that (1) Facebook unilaterally tried to convert some information previously designated as private to public; and (2) Facebook changed its developer data retention policy to allow developers to retain end user data indefinintely.

Neither of these changes benefits end users, no doubt. But, what I’m fascinated to see is that today, a mere 12 days after the complaint, the user experience is significantly different from the experience described in the complaint (notably, the experience is more protective of user’s data when compared against the experience described in the complaint).

The legal process is slow and cumbersome and using it to argue with a quick and nimble internet-based adversary is going to be frustrating, to say the least. However, where end users are concerned, perhaps the quick responsiveness of Facebook is a benefit. If enough people complain, they just roll out a fix, long before the Feds, or the courts order them to do so. Certainly, this means that the fix is likely to be on Facebook’s preferred terms, rather than what the court or Feds order, but isn’t a quick fix better than a long period of open sharing without a fix (when it comes to privacy)?

I’m not saying I approve of Facebook’s most recent blunders. But, I do applaud of their quick “opt-in” and “opt-out-of-all” additions after the complaint about the blunders. And, I’m fascinated to see how or where the law fits in this world where the facts upon which any legal claims may be based are so ephemeral.

Mas Porno Del Jardin

So… I can’t help but wonder what the title above is going to do to my web analytics… (yes, I’m a data nerd.)

Anyways, here are the baked dinner and slow-roasted tomatoes we made in the gas BBQ (’cause the oven is still broken) from last week’s harvest (in case you were wondering — pepperoni, bacon, okra, tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and garlic are a fabulous combination!):

This weekend’s harvest was nothing to sneeze at:

So, we decided to make tomato sauce to freeze:

You know, all the tomatoes that will fit, plus garlic, some basil, some olive oil. Boiled down for a while:

And eventually put into containers for the freezer:

Delicious (if a wee bit too acidic, if we are honest — we will have to bear that in mind and use with carmelized onions, or some other form of sugar to cut it).

In other news, the world’s slowest growing plants, the hot peppers, have finally begun to put out a decent harvest (just in time for the cold fall… we shall start earlier next year):

The top one? That’s a squash pepper — it looks like a habanero for a reason. Amazing flavor, but *very* hot. Supposedly we’re supposed to leave it ’til it turns red, but even green they have great flavor and almost too much heat, so it’s hard to be patient.

The long slightly wrinkled peppers? Yeah, Pimiento D’espelette — we haven’t had the patience to let a single one turn red. They are flavorful, but not very hot at all. More smokey. Complex. I like ’em. E thinks they are useful for fiber.

The jalapenos? Well, if you grow ’em in your garden, they will be hotter than the ones you buy in the store. But effort to reward ratio? It’s likely that next year we’ll add some other wacky peppers like the squash peppers instead of the jalapenos.

And, I think that’s a wrap.