Oh: peeves. Those shitty grocery store tomatoes with no flavor. We buy one a year just before 'maters start turning up in he garden. One bite, and growing your own is worth the hassle.
I think those nasty grocery store tomatoes should be against the law. Sometimes those little campari tomatoes are almost tasty, though. I get those when I'm jonesing for a ham sandwich with tomatoes. I didn't have great luck with my tomatoes last year. The summer growing season here is just too short and doesn't contain enough rain. (Seriously) I'm not sure if I posted about the roma tomatoes I grew that I was so excited to make sauce with until I was cutting them up and noticed some little white threads. They were really thin - threadlike, almost - so I didn't really think twice about them. Until one start moving across my cutting board under its own steam. The rest of the tomatoes stayed on the plants for the rest of the summer. I do not do worms. Auria - Pop Tarts - I used to buy unfrosted Pop Tarts, toast them and then butter them. In order to avoid doing that, I started buying frosted Pop Tarts, which need no butter. I almost never eat them anymore but my SO eats them all the time. Untoasted. How weird is that?
I had an apartment complex once threaten me because I discarded their bullshit plants and grew tomatoes and herbs. It was probably against the rules, but I was a dick and responded to their threats on my legal letterhead. They dropped it. It was worth it. 5 year plan is to be able to have my own chickens, a couple goats, enough access to game meat to not buy other meat, and enough garden to not buy produce. Indiana is cheap, so it's doable for the price you coastals get a condo for.
Having to purchase a big bunch Rosemary, Basil, cilantro, thyme or parsley at the supermarket/farmers market for a recipe when I only need a few sprigs for a recipe. Can't I just buy a sprig of thyme for a dime? Having my own herb boxes solved that problem
lyon is not the most mediterraneam climate in the world but tomatoes are the one thing i get plenty of, enough to give some away either. zucchini pretty good too, i pick it faster than we eat it because it stays fresh a long time in the crisper, whereas on the plant they just go mutant. i went away for a week last summer and when i came back i had a couple two feet long that probably weighed 5-6 lbs each. i've never had worm problems with tomatoes but if you have a big cherry tree like we do you learn to live with them. don't worry barb, they won't parasite your system or make you sick; fruit fly larvae are very host-specific, they're germ-free... if anything it's just protein. don't be a wimp. is that the pioneer attitude that conquered the great northwest?
what you can do that with is ginger. there's always a piece in the crate just big enough... when you weigh it the ticket prints out for like three cents. another thing i learned is that even if the fancy forest mushrooms seem to cost 3-4 times as much as the champignons de paris (the normal white ones) you only need a fourth as many since they don't shrink down to nothing the same way. so better product for the same price. when we moved in there was already thyme, rosemary and two types of mint (important for taboule), but all scattered around, i had to organize things, and add some more : cilantro i have to plant several times a year because it goes to seed, but parsley stays good and leafy and even made it through this winter. basil i have to replant every spring, in fact last weekend was beautiful so i got everything seeded under a temporary greenhouse made from old windows scavenged from a dumpster (there's a glazier around the corner). it's snowing a tad now, but that's what the greenhouse is for!
I think they were inchworms, not fruit fly larvae. I didn't have good luck with my oregano or mint last year - my backyard is not healthy. I have no idea what the people who lived here before me did to it but most of what I planted either sprouted bugs or mold. However, my two kinds of thyme and my rosemary did okay and, surprising to me, overwintered okay. I really didn't expect the rosemary to make it.
if they were tiny like threads and in the fruit they were fruit fly larvae. i first assumed Neoceratitis cyanescens but since you're in oregon i think it's more likely Drosophila suzukii. (sorry, I used to work at the CDFA in insect detection). my oregano problem is different. it grows like mad and wants to take over my whole herb patch... but the weather's not hot enough perhaps for it, it has no savor. and like thyme or mint (for me anyway) you can't kill it if you try... well, i guess roundup would do it, but i mean with a hoe. as for "inchworms" i can't grow lettuce of any size because some kind of Phyllopertha gets to the roots first. you pull up the dying salad and there's that brown-headed white caterpillar (worm)... crushed eggshells in the soil give you a fighting chance... almost. this year i'm going to do roquette or something that harvests very young.
I just googled fruit fly larvae and my worms were definitely not that stubby. These were longish - at least 1/2 to 3/4s of an inch long and very, very thin. There was nothing maggot-like about them. I've searched but I can't find anything that looks exactly like it. This is the closest I've been able to come, but my worms weren't this big around:
i'm curious and a bit stumped! were they green like that or white? or rust color? were they in the fruit or just on the board? with legs or without (did they inch or writhe)? that's definitely some kind of moth caterpillar your pic shows, and thinner than any i'm familiar with. in any case things like that eat leaves and sometimes roots, not fruit, so if they got on your tomatoes it's rather by accident, washing with water is enough. daces cucurbitae larvae (which can attack tomatoes) can be quite thin in their first stages but nothing like 3/4" long, about 8-10mm max. threadworm or pinworm is suggested by your description and these are indeed human parasites, but outside the host they exist only as microscopic eggs. and they too are much smaller, 5mm max. there are similar threadlike parasites of other insects (particularly tomato hornworm, thus your friends) that you can see as adults in the garden but they would be even smaller. in any case, here's the place to remind that washing your garden vegetables that are close to the ground (no need for fruit from trees really) is very important. there are lots of things out there that are actually good for you, but some that are not. finally, when i say i'm not bothered by maggots i mean in the early stages. later on i'm not keen at all, but it's more because of the damage they've done to the fruit than the beastie itself.
they work all right if you can get the slot open without tearing the rest of the top. like, right, you wish!
Peeve: when my cleaning lady cooks for me and leaves bones and cartilege and such in the food for the sake of "flavor". To me, mouth feel is at least as important.
we have two rosemary "bushes" along the side of our house, and when i water them, i can taste hollandaise sauce...
They were definitely in the fruit, because once I saw the little thread moving of its own volition, I realized that I'd seen several such threads while chopping up the tomatoes for sauce. It's true that these tomatoes were grown close to the ground, but I didn't harvest any fruit that was in direct contact with the ground. It's a mystery. I'm going to be more careful about where I buy my plants this year. No more Fred Meyer plants for me.
best is to buy seeds. for years i thought, heck, for the tiny surface i have to plant in buying plants in pots won't ruin me... but prices at the nursery i patronize went up dramatically a couple of years ago, so i took the plunge. and while i wouldn't buy live plants at carrouf', for seeds why not? thus even more cheaper. and more and more cheaperer. because for half the price of three plants i get a jillion seeds (for cukes or zukes only half a jillion). enough for my needs and extra to play amélie poulain with a neighborhood urban garden. and i'm on my third year out of the same paquets. need more convincing? the variety available with seeds compared to plants is not just superior, it's actually daunting for hemmers and hawers of my ilk. making the decision to swiss chard or not swiss chard was already hand-wringing; confronted with a choice between 15 varieties of same made a pearl of sweat trickle twixt my irresolute shoulderblades. but it's all worth it. because seeing those first little shoots spring up, cast the last remnant of seed casing off their tousled heads (isn't that precious!), then spread their first real leaves in the sun... it's like childbirth without the diapers. and when the fruit finally appears and you hear (well imagine) the words father, today i am an eggplant... well, it brings a tear to your eye raising someone else's children cannot procure.
Boiled eggs that don't peel worth a damn when you are going to make deviled-eggs. It never fails, if I'm just making something like an egg-salad sandwich or someting they peel as easy as a banana, but if I'm making deviled eggs I have to fight with every inch of shell, often ending up with a mangled, unsightly result. I've tried varying the time, adding salt, new eggs, old eggs and haven't found any consistancy.
When the eggs are done, take them from the boiling water and submerge them in ice and water. Leave them there for a few minutes. Works for us. A friend of ours with a food blog liked the foodnetwork approach, too... http://www.food.com/recipe/hard-boiled-eggs-easy-to-peel-382101
