Garden 2014

I got my tomatoes in the ground before the end of March. We had a freeze warning a couple of weeks into April. I tented the plants with some old sheets.


It wasn't too bad. I think I lost one tomato plant, but it might come back.

The strawberries survived and are producing fruit.


We've eaten 4-5 so far, but some animals have discovered them and there are now bites out of the ones that are growing.

We've had a pretty cold spring. The benefit of the cooler temperatures, tomatoes already growing.


Isn't that awesome!!!!

I didn't do much with my compost this winter due to the broken wrist. I discovered that cold composting doesn't kill pumpkin seeds. After a quick screen of the compost, I tilled it into the box before planting the tomatoes.


After a week or two tons of baby pumpkin plants were going. I moved a couple and plucked the rest. I'm still plucking the rest.

I don't know if the transplants will survive, but if they do, maybe we'll get from free pumpkins for Halloween.

Garden 2014

My garden has been pretty pitiful. After breaking my wrist in November, I did zero outside chores. All dead plants were left looking dreadful until this weekend.

Even though my wrist isn't near 100%, I couldn't let my garden go this summer. This is pretty much the very last weekend to get tomatoes in the ground and hope for a decent crop. Last year we had a lot of late cold rain and I didn't get them in until mid april. We didn't even get a dozen tomatoes.

This year, since it is still pretty late, I purchased bigger plants. J & DH wanted big 2 lb tomatoes so we got some sort of beefsteak. I don't know what it was, just that it came in a big pot and it is suppose to produce big tomatoes.

I also have dreams of multitudes of Roma tomatoes so I can roast them like some blog post I recently read (but can't find because they cancelled Google Reader and feedly doesn't provide a search within your blog list or maybe they do but you have to pay for it but I can't bring myself to pay for it since I'm still so mad at the demise of Google Reader.)  I bought some Roma tomatoes. They didn't have bigger plants, so I had to buy itty-bitty ones. I don't know what will happen, but I can cross my fingers and hope for the best.


I also bought a poppy plant because I thought they looked pretty.


Three surprises in the garden.

I planted a hellebore 3 years ago and it isn't amounted to much. It stayed about the same size, but it was never eaten or trampled or killed. It just stayed the same. I looked out the window this week and noticed something white. I was happy to find it wasn't a piece of trash but a flower.


The plant doubled in size and is flowering. I guess it just needed time to establish itself.

The second surprise is strawberries. I've planted them every year for the kids and we've never gotten much out of them. The birds get to them before we do. I wasn't planning to plant them again this year. But went I went to rake the leaves out of the bed I uncovered the strawberries from last year growing and already producing!


(It is sort of hard to see but under the bright green leaf in top left are two baby green strawberries)

The third surprise. A tiny baby garter snake. It was so cute!


It was nice to pull some weeds and get some plants in the ground but I can already tell that my wrist isn't happy with me. Off to ice it down!

Goodbye to the caterpillars

So, there haven't been caterpillar updates in awhile. That's because my caterpillars are gone. I guess hungry birds got them. There were too many to count at first. Then it went down to seven, then four, then one, then none. I'm assuming that the big one went off to chryaslis somewhere and is now a pretty butterfly. Next time I'm bringing them inside. Forget leaving things to nature!

Instead of caterpillars, we're watching the flowers bloom.




And tonight I picked the first tomato!

May, so far

Lots going on. Cold spells & tornado sirens, but the tomatoes (& the rest of the garden) seem to have survived. Lots of birthday celebrations. Bad photos of the band concert. And I lost the video of them playing too! Some knitting going on. Finally, that ice cream man is very happy that I went back to work. He's there all the time again!

Garden 2013

I haven't done any garden posts this year. It didn't start off very well.

My tiny baby tomato plants didn't make it through the very rainy cold first weekend of Spring Break. I came home to find a couple of shriveled up plants. I went to the store and bought more, only to lose them in a late freeze a few weeks later. I quickly replaced them and they seem to be doing well. I hope I'll get some tomatoes this year.


I planted some herbs behind the tomato box. They took a hard hit with the freeze too. The dill made a major come back (I don't like dill, it is caterpillar bait.)

 

The lone jalepeno is looking better but something is eating it, I suspect that plant eating dog of ours.


The basil is looking bad. I'm thinking it might be time to go buy another one before it gets too hot.


J planted corn again this year. B planted carrots but nothing came up. The seeds were old. I think this might be my last year for corn. I'd much rather use that box for something else.


The garlic I planted last winter is surviving the dog, I hope. He keeps running back there and walking all over it.  Again, I think he is eating the clover that I haven't bothered to weed out yet.


The strawberry plants already have fruit on them. Maybe this is the year we get something out of our strawberries.


We planted some squash, zucchini and spaghetti. There are sunflowers growing behind. I think I'm going to have to move them around. B planted them quite close together. I wonder if you can transplant sunflowers. Will they survive?


In addition to vegetables, I planted a heuchera.


It is looking spindly, but I'm hoping it will grow into a pretty plant like this one I planted two year ago.


Speaking of plants I put years ago, this gerbera daisy bloomed for the first time since I planted it for DH's 40th birthday party 2.5 year ago.


The bloom is fading and the picture's out of focus but I had to include it because I was so excited about the flower. I was surprised by the yellow-orange color too. It should have been red like this one.


The red gerberas are growing like gang busters.  I guess it is a good year for gerbers!

Tomatoes for Christmas

My mom took a trip to Lancaster, PA with her quilting friends this fall to check out Amish quilting or whatever is it you do on a quilting trip. She also found my Christmas present, heirloom tomato seeds.


I've never grown tomato plants from seed before but decided to give it shot. I looked up some information on my favorite gardening blog and headed to amazon.  A few days later a greenhouse and some popup seed pods arrived on my neighbor's front porch. (We're having house number issues and our stuff keeps getting delivered to their house. I'm ready to go paint their numbers on the curb to put an end to it!) After two days, I realized I hadn't received my packages so I went looking for them. (The neighbors rarely go out their front door so they didn't realize they were there, but she did call me right after I picked them up to let me know.)


Greenhouse and seed pods in hand, I set out to grow some tomatoes last Friday. Watching the seed pods pop up was cool, I should have waiting and let the kids do that part.




Tomato seeds are tiny. I needed a quarter in the picture to give size perspective.


I planted the seed and then I peeked every 10 minutes or so. I'm not sure why, I knew they wouldn't grow in 10 minutes. I was a just little excited.


I didn't have to wait long. Five days later, I had this. See those tiny green plants growing!

using up tomatoes

I had 7-8 lbs (yes lbs of tomatoes, not 7-8 tomatoes) sitting on my counter with no way for me to eat them all before they would go bad. I did a google search on how to freeze tomatoes and instead found a recipe for roasted tomato sauce. It sounded like a good idea. The best part was that I got to use the garlic and basil from the garden too. If only I hadn't used all of the onions I grew, I could have made a completely home grown tomato sauce.


All the veggies chopped


About halfway through the roasting


Blurry picture of the sauce after running it through the food mill.


Dh came out of the office and told me that it smelled like an italian restaurant.  Let's hope it tastes as good as it smelled.

hungry vermin

I've been blessed with lots of tomatoes this year. I shouldn't complain. But those nasty vermin have been eating them. At first it was just the ripe, ripe red ones. I'm okay with that. I picked them just not quite done and let them finish on the counter.

The vermin figure out my strategy and started going after the almost, not quite, maybe I'll pick them this afternoon tomatoes. I changed my strategy and started leaving one on the vine to ripen to satisfy their tomato tooth. There were still plenty left for me.

Oh, no. That wasn't enough for those vermin, they wanted more.

Not only are they are they taking a single bite out of each tomato, they are starting to go after the sort of yellow, not even quite yet orange tomatoes.





I still shouldn't complain. I pulled five tomatoes that were eaten and five tomatoes that weren't. I guess I should be glad that my tomato plants are a giant tangle and the inside tomatoes are protected from their teeth. Now I just need to stop thinking about exactly what kind of vermin have been eating my fruit. It definitely can't be rabbits, bite marks are too small. I'm going with possom because I can't stomach the idea of rats in my garden.

Family Pizza Night

A just finished up Sr DECATS, a 3 week camp for academically talented students. It was a different experience than her last two years at Jr DECATS. It was much more free, they got to choose their own schedules, they took a major class every day for the morning and had electives in the afternoons, they got to bring their ipods and use them when they wanted as long as they weren't disruptive, they got to eat wherever they wanted. She loved it.

Her major was Culinary Arts and she did lots of cooking. They made ratatouille, crepes, beignets, pizza, pasta and much more. She has been coming home every afternoon begging me to let her cook. With a full day of DECATS for A & J and me juggling carpools to get them both there, we didn't have time for A to cook. Today was the last day at DECATS and she asked to make something.

We decided on family pizza night. A made the dough, J & B & I made the sauce.

We have plenty of tomatoes from the garden.




That picture in only half of what we have picked. I didn't feel like peeling and seeding all of those tomatoes.  It was quite necessary to purchase a food mill. The boys enjoyed using it.








I didn't get an action shot of A making her dough, but she did a fine job without any help from me (except opening the new package of yeast) and the dough turned out beautifully.




The pizza turned out great. I also made a caprese salad with one of the brandywine tomatos, the large cracked pinkish tomatoes that taste so delicious. That was good, but even better when eaten on top of the pizza and the crust dipped in the leftover balsamic/olive oil on the plate. Yum!!






It was a very successful family pizza night.