We've been getting a lot of tomatoes in the last couple of weeks, but the real explosion has been in the cherry varieties - a couple dozen plants have offered up maybe 30-40 pounds of tomatoes so far.


It takes several pints of cherry tomatoes to make a quart of dried ones, but they taste delicious.


We use a Nesco Gardenmaster food dehydrator, currently on sale for almost 30% off (about $100 instead of $150) on Amazon. We've used it on and off for years and haven't had any trouble with it. The dehydrator features rigid tray sections topped with flexible polypropylene discs (mesh or solid, depending on what you're drying) that are easy to wash and BPA-free.


The drying process took around 24 hours at 135 degrees, but that was only background noise and occasional tasty checks of the tomatoes' progress. The real time-consuming tasks were washing and splitting the tomatoes and flipping them all on their trays halfway through; despite several clever ideas, there proved to be no quicker way to do this than to gently pick them up one by one and flip them over.

The dried tomatoes are not perfectly "preserved" in that they keep best and longest in the freezer, not on the pantry shelf. You can also preserve these dried tomatoes in olive oil, although it's recommended that you eat any stored that way within a few weeks, sort of a tomato equivalent to refrigerator pickles. I plan to do this with a small subset of these dried cherry tomatoes because I'm sure they will be delicious tossed in a pasta salad or topping a garden salad with spinach and goat cheese.

Last night we processed about 10 pounds of gorgeous whole, "full-sized" tomatoes - deep yellow ones (I'm blanking on the variety name) and lots and lots of Romas. Getting the skins off was easier than I anticipated; a pot of boiling water, a couple-minute dunk, and then dropping them in an ice-water bath to cool, and my four-year-old daughter Z and I peeled the skins off easily. I chopped off the stem end and in some cases pulled out a tougher central pillar while we both peeled them; then all it took for the sauce was simmering and seasoning. It wasn't enough to can, and we're a little wary of our skills at canning low-acid foods anyway. And of course there's the whole BPA thing. We'll freeze the gallon or so of tomato sauce to save it until winter.

Are you harvesting a bumper crop of anything, or planning on one? If so, what are you doing with it? We'll share a few other ways we're making use of our tomatoes in upcoming posts!

Our raised bed is booming at both ends, and we're working on getting the middle filled in.

At one end, we've got a spicy salad mix that includes mustard greens, frisee, and a few other things that we're not exactly sure what they are (if you recognize any of it, definitely let me know!).



As you can see, just a few hot and sunny days in Seattle, combined with the fact that we weren't quite sure when/how to harvest these greens, means they got a little bit TOO big, and the frisee totally bolted. However, this weekend we finally got around to plucking the biggest of the greens. Our first harvest of the year! Sadly, the bolted frisee was pretty much a loss, though I did enjoy its pretty yellow flowers. On the other hand, those big fat mustard green leaves cooked up beautifully in a simple fritatta that included bok choy purchased from one of our nearby farmers markets, a little onion and garlic, and some grape tomatoes. Topped with salsa verde and sour cream, it made a scrumptious dinner, much of which even our 8-month-old could eat.

Also down at that end of the bed, the peas are already fattening up, and some of them were ready to harvest this morning. We haven't eaten what we picked yet, but I did taste one while still out in the garden, and it was sweet and juicy. The flavor of summer. Here, have a look:




I think, as a newbie gardener, peas are my favorite. So easy to make them grow and they aren't fussy if you plant them a smidgen too early in the season. Plus, it gives you an excuse to build some kind of lattice/climbing contraption. We made do with some pieces of wood and string we had around the house, and I think it actually looks pretty good! Also, they have really taught me that the notion that plants are immobile is a fallacy. These little guys can move, reaching their tendrils across wide spaces and winding themselves around anything that they can find. Finally, what's not to love about their sweet and dainty flowers?

Down at the other end of our veggie bed, the squash plants pretty much doubled in size during last week's heat wave. We have two varieties: black beauty zucchini and butternut squash. I'm thinking it's a good thing we heeded the spacing directions on the seed packet, since these bad boys are growing as if they are on steroids.



So that's what's going on in the veggie bed. All this lush greenery got us excited to plant a few more things this weekend. We now have leeks, onions, chard, beets, cucumbers, pole beans, and a couple of kinds of peppers in the ground. We just went for it and planted from seeds, so I'm pretty nervous that they won't actually grow, but we figured it was worth a try.

I'll end with a final shot. This is my husband's project more than it is my own. He is trying the whole upside-down-tomato thing and has started two plants growing down out of the bottom of some buckets. They're doing great so far, about 2 weeks after transplanting into their new gravity-defying position.

My family recently got the chance to review a Chariot trailer for our bikes - the kind of trailer that you can stick your kid in and ride down to the farmer's market, park, or just take a fun jaunt around town. Having never used a bike trailer before, my husband and I were really interested in the details; how does it rig up to the bike? Is it compact enough to fit in the car? How comfortable is it for our young son?

We reviewed a two-kid model, despite only having one child. My reasoning for this is that we wanted a lot of cargo space - for veggies from the market, groceries from the store, or just for blankets in the colder months. Moreover, we have lots of friends with similar aged children. So it seemed like a good way to have a double stroller when we are watching our friend's kid for the afternoon.

Below, details of our findings for this very high-quality and easy-to-use bike trailer, which is not without its flaws.

Setup and use

The bike hitch is easy to use and sturdy. Even someone who isn't interested in bike mechanics (like me) would find it simple. The rain fly, bug fly, sun cover, and safety flag also all attach and unattach (or store neatly with velcro tabs) cleanly and conveniently.




The Chariot provides a comfortable ride for our child. He falls asleep in it all the time (his typical seal of approval for anything) and at other times can be hear squealing with excitement at passing dogs, other bikes, etc. The tires seem sturdy and ride really smoothly, and the adjustable suspension is handy but also simple.

The large rear pocket is big enough for all sort of things. You can wedge a full frame pack for your child in there, plus stick a diaper bag deep in the pocket. Very useful! And despite overfilling this pocket, the trailer still felt well balanced. Unfortunately, the mechanism that holds the storage bag in place (two quick release levers) slowly tightens on one side, and loosens on the other, with use. After only a few times, the tightened side lever is extremely hard to release. This seems to be because of the direction of the screw threading on the connectors. It is very annoying. I wonder if they could use another connector (cotter pins?) in a future model that would alleviate this problem.

For a young small child (about 12-18 months), the helmet slot is not enough to keep the trailer's (very necessary) safety straps from pushing the kid's helmet forward onto their face. My son was really upset by his helmet falling onto his face, and it was unsafe because his helmet was sliding out of position. Then we figured out that if you take a nice thick blanket and pad the entire backrest of the seat (basically, extending the distance from the back of the child's head to the problem area about 2 inches) then the kid is still strapped in there securely, and they can wear their helmet in the right position and comfortably. In an interesting coincidence, I asked a friend if she had this same problem with her 1 child model Chariot and 18 month old daughter, and she said, "Yes, but lately we've been padding her forward a little with a blanket and it completely fixed it." So this is a common problem for other young toddlers, I'm guessing.

Storage and transport

Folding the trailer down for storage is quick and simple. Once folded, the trailer fits pretty well in small spaces. I'd expect that any non-compact car could accommodate it. For us, it fits in our larger car's storage area, but is a really awkward squeeze into our smaller car.


However, when you try to fold the Chariot down flat to store it, the folding releases get caught on the fabric of the body. It only takes a second to fix this, but it makes the folding process more challenging and if you were rushed, you might accidentally rip your fabric.

Jogging and strolling kits

You can remove and swap out the bike hitch for components that turn the trailer into a standard stroller or jogging stroller; the former features two castered wheels in front, the latter a single center tire. Each is sold separately for $60-$75.

We tested the jogging stroller kit; we loved how you can add the wheel and handlebar without the use of tools once you get to a strolling site. While this is a little challenging because the parts fit very precisely, it gets quicker with a few tries and is very well-engineered. A big bonus is that there are pre-fitted storage slots on the frame, making the whole system perfect for a bike-stroll-bike outing.

We did not test the unit for actual jogging, and it lacks some of the features one might expect in a fully-featured jogging stroller; for example, it has a foot-activated parking brake, but no hand brake. For $75, however, the conversion is far less expensive than most serious jogging strollers, which run anywhere from $150 on up. We love the convenience of being able to swap this out to combine biking and strolling (or jogging, if one was so inclined).

Summary

After testing out the Chariot Cougar 2 kid bike trailer, I'm glad I chose the two-child model. The single-child models are narrow and efficient pods to move kids, but they allow virtually no room for gear or other random items.The two-kid model is a posh paradise of space and comfort for a single child, with lots of leg room, space for a diaper bag, some lettuce, multiple toys, and a blanket. Lastly, believe it or not, in several years when my son is old enough to ride his own bike, my husband plans to use this trailer for deer hunting on his bike. While that might seem absurd to some, it is relatively common in this part of western Montana. A tarp could easily convert this trailer into a deer hauler, and it absolutely feels sturdy enough to use for this unconventional cargo.

We're also very interested in testing the company's skiing conversion kit (!), which will allow us to pull the trailer behind us while cross-country skiing.

After a month of taking it for test walks (in the stroller mode) and test rides (when rigged as a bike trailer) I can honestly say that our expectations, even for what we knew was a high-performance model of bike trailer, were exceeded. The Chariot Cougar 2 trailer is an excellent piece of family sporting gear, and one that we'd suggest to just about anyone who uses a bike.

The Chariot Cougar sells for $400 and $450 for the single and double models. You can find a dealer of Chariot bike trailers on the Chariot website, or purchase them from online sporting shops.