First of the season

My tomato plants have not been doing the best this year, due to all the wet weather we had a few weeks ago. They got blight (or septoria leaf spot, or whatever it is) early on, and as you can see below, the disease is progressing, although it's slowed down some. I've picked off lots of affected branches, which is why the plants look so bare near the bottom.

At least there are still some tomatoes that are looking quite good. There was even one beginning to ripen when I took these pics on Friday.

I picked it Sunday morning, and by yesterday it was looking like this:

It wasn't very big, though, as you can see below.

Grandpa and I shared it for supper last night. We each got a couple small bites.

Yesterday morning I also picked this lovely GREEN tomato.....

..... off the ground! There were also a few deer tracks around, and apparently a deer had tried to bite into it.

It must've been too hard, since the skin was barely broken, so the tomato was just mostly bruised. But I guess it'll get tossed, because it probably will spoil before it'd get ripe.

I also chased the 3 hen turkeys and their dozen or so young out of the garden one day. So far they haven't done any damage. Just wait till more tomatoes start to ripen.....

Garden produce

I thought I'd give you a peek at my garden, although I took these photos over a week ago, and with the heat we've been having, things have really matured fast, so it doesn't quite look like this anymore. :)

The tomatoes had just started ripening nicely:

Several weeks of dry weather followed by the big rain we got, though, caused a lot of them to crack, even while green:

They're ripening really fast now, and I've picked a lot of them.

Here are the whole plants, over 6 feet tall in their super-duper tomato cages. All the moisture we had in the early part of the summer, however, caused a rather big leaf spot problem, as you can see at the bottoms of the plants, and it's gotten considerably worse in the last week:

My cantaloupe/muskmelons have done well, considering I only have 2 plants. There are about a dozen of them out there. We've already started eating this one... it got huge, and it's yummy!

My one butternut squash plant has produced well, too:

I have tons of green bell peppers from my 4 plants. Two of them are supposed to produce red peppers. I've forgotten which ones are which, so I'll just have to wait and see! However, if I wait long enough, they'll all turn red, anyway.

With the wet spring we had, I think every carrot seed grew. I'll have an abundant crop there! The onions have bent over and started to dry down:

Here's something in the wildflower bed that I didn't plant!

It's a Rainbow! I usually find her out there in the mornings. She still hides out from the other cats a lot. :(

She's bigger than a muskmelon. :)

Nearing the end

Anybody else have any of these left from this year's garden?

This is one of seven that I have left. This year, I think because it was so HOT, my tomatoes didn't set blossoms very fast, and then when they finally did, they ripened very slowly. We were able to keep up with the tomatoes produced on my two plants just by eating them. I didn't have any to preserve, but that's okay, because I really didn't need any. When the threat of a hard freeze came, there were lots of tomatoes on, but they were still very green. I picked a bunch, and this is one of the last of those. They sure aren't as tasty, though, as the ones that ripen on the vine.

Yeah, I'm getting hard up for photos. :)  And when Courtney was here on Tuesday, we worked on a cool project, but we were so busy with it that I forgot to take pictures! Boo! I'll try to do better next week.

Best tomato cages ever, Take 2

Well, this isn't what I intended to write about this morning, but when I looked out the window first thing, my other subject got preempted.

We had some gusty wind last night (accompanied by .7" of much-needed rain, thankfully). The strongest gust was clocked at 63 mph at our local airport! When I looked out the window first thing, much to my dismay, this is what I saw:

Yep, one of my two tomato plants, in its super sturdy tomato cage, was flat on the ground. It was in the ground VERY sturdily, as Grandpa had helped me stake them. But a 63 mph wind gust is nasty, especially for a plant that is well over 6 feet tall. I think the other plant was saved by the "hedge" of asparagus plants.

The plant was still protected nicely and didn't seem to have suffered any damage, so I decided to see if I could get it back up by myself. Lo and behold, it was easy!! I just lifted it up and pushed those rods back into the wet ground, and voila!

Good as new!! Nothing was bent, and the tomatoes were just fine!

I LOVE those tomato cages!! If you want to know more about them, check out the E Z Tomato Cage website.

More after-rain prettiness

Remember these sad-looking tomato plants? They're still hangin' in there (and still well-supported by the awesome E Z Tomato Cages, even though the plants got to nearly 7 feet tall) but looking sadder than ever these days:

BUT... did you notice that there are tomatoes hangin' in there, too? The poor plants are still valiantly producing!

And every few days, I pick some more nearly-ripe ones.

The asparagus certainly produced this year! It LOVED the wet weather we had during the first half of the summer.

It has its own fall prettiness. Click on the pic below to see it larger and note the raindrops decorating it.

More asparagus loveliness:

And even more:

(Click any photo to enlarge. They're better bigger!)

Fall colors and rain go 'pretty' well together!

Yum!

My cantaloupe (muskmelons?) are finally ripening. They're wonderful... big, juicy and sweet! Here are the 2nd and 3rd ones I've picked. Grandpa and I are eating the first one, which was even bigger... we'll be getting our 3rd meal from it!

I put the tomatoes next to them for a little size perspective, but I guess that wasn't necessary. Here's some more perspective, thanks to my "helpers".

There are 5 more (cantaloupe, not cats) that should ripen, plus some smaller ones, still on the vine. Not bad, for only getting one plant that grew! (I guess my 2003 seeds aren't the best anymore.)

Best tomato cages ever

I have sad/happy tomato plants this year. I hesitate to show them to you, because they're not the healthiest tomato plants I've ever had, thanks to our too-wet and too-hot weather. As you can see, they're dying from the bottom up from tomato blight and/or septoria leafspot. They also have few tomatoes on them compared to other years. From what I've heard, many other people are having the same problem this year. That's the sad part.

The happy part is the cages that are supporting the tomato plants! They are awesome! I had gotten one last year and liked it so well that I got another one this year. (I requested both as Christmas gifts, as a matter of fact... Santa musta thought I was a good girl.) They're called E Z Tomato Cages.

They're very strong... they'll last forever... no more bent wire cages. They set up easily, fold flat for storage and take up very little space. You can even get 2-ft. extensions to add on at the top if your tomato plants outgrow them. My plants are about 6 feet tall in the photo.

If you're interested, check them out on the web site. They might seem expensive, but they're worth it in my book. (Or you could request some from Santa. ;) ) You can grow a lot of tomato plant in very little space, but mainly you won't have your plants lying on the ground and in a lot worse shape than mine are right now.

On a healthier note, I do have some nice squash coming on this year. This is a baby buttercup.

Here are a couple of baby cantaloupe(s?) from my one-and-only plant. They're about 4" or so across, so it'll be awhile before we can eat them. More babies are on the way, too.

BTW, how are your tomato plants this year? Are they sickly, too?

Well.... our new water is clear and is flowing freely. Now once we get all the sand worked out of the pipes (it turns out that that bowl of 'gunk' was very fine sand instead of clay), all will be well (and I'll dare to do laundry again).

The end

The end of my tomatoes for this year, that is. Courtney and I shared this last one just last week, November 9th! I had picked it green only a couple weeks before, when I feared it was going to freeze on the vine. It was quite yummy. And how often does one get to eat fresh tomatoes from their garden in November?!

Endings

Although it's warmed up again the last couple days, earlier freezing temps brought an end to many things. I took in the birdbath a few days ago. I hadn't seen any birds at it for quite awhile. And eventually ice would be a little hard to drink.

And here are the last tomatoes of the season. (Yep, the pickers missed a few, Kris.) Rather pretty, aren't they? I pulled the frozen vines out yesterday. So the garden is done for the year.

Okay, one of them isn't totally pretty. But I bet the deer is!

And remember the milkweed? Here's what it looks like now.

I mowed the lawn one last time yesterday. Nice to have that job done for the year, too.

Grandma's little gardener is back in the tomato patch

This time she's picking tomatoes for Auntie Kris, faithful reader of the blog, who noticed on one of the posts that Grandma G had surplus green ones that were going to go to waste, so she jumped in and offered to take them off her hands. Yay - worked out good for everybody!

Courtney was a very willing worker, but......

Fortunately, Daddy and Grandpa happened to show up just at the right time, so with a little teamwork, the tomato picking went much more smoothly......

Grandma's little gardener is even going to deliver the tomatoes in person today. How lucky can Auntie Kris get?!

Fawn update?

I went out to pick tomatoes on Sunday, and look what I found!

I tried to blame it on our son-in-law, but he had proof that it wasn't him. His mouth isn't that narrow. (Boy, did he luck out!) ;-)

Also considering that there were dainty little hoof prints by the tomato plant, I'm guessing it was my fawn back for a visit. Anyway, I'll choose again to believe that he/she is alive and well. Now if only he/she would stay out of my garden!

However, these were left untouched (and many more that are ripening fast now)! Aren't they beautiful? I think they're the nicest tomatoes I've ever raised!

So huge! YUM!!

My overgrown garden

You may have noticed I've been a little lax in posting lately. (At least I FELT like I have been.) I've been under the weather with one heckuva cold (or something) the last couple weeks and just haven't felt much like blogging, much less have any inspiration of what to take pics of. And because of not feeling well, I also didn't have Courtney for over a week (who was also under the same "weather" for awhile), so I'm also out of pics/videos of her (till tomorrow). And then there's been the Olympics on TV every night, so that's taken up some of my usual computer time. And I can't see the TV from the computer. Enough excuses? Anyway, I started to feel alive again yesterday, and though I'm not 100% yet, I believe I'll survive. ;-)

Due to the abundant rains we've had this summer, my garden has really gotten overgrown! It's been hard to even get into it to pick anything. Front and center here is what is supposed to be 'bush' acorn squash. That's some "bush", if you ask me! It's completely covering a row of green beans on one side and moving well into the wildflowers on the other. Later this afternoon I must go out and cut the vines off the beans... I do NOT want that many squash! And as you can see from the second photo, they're still blossoming profusely, and the little honey bee inside the right blossom is doing its job, too.

On the other end of the garden are my 2 hills of cantaloupe. They were totally covering all that bare space between the 2 rows of onions, until I ruthlessly ripped out the excess vines a couple nights ago. The melons are VERY thick in there... easily the most I've ever had. I can't wait for them to ripen, though... they're soooo yummy!

My tomato vines are also very thick, and it's hard to even see the fruit under them. But here's a peek.

My green peppers are producing abundantly, too, but were too covered for a good photo. And even though I only planted less than a 2-foot row of beets, I'll have more than enough there, too. Needless to say, it's been a good year for gardening.

Oh yeah, the weeds have done well, too. In the last few days, I've hauled out two 5-gallon buckets of "beloved" purslane. (I should've taken a pic before I started pulling!) But at least it was easy to pull, with the ground being wet, and with so much shading from the tall vegetable plants, it also stood upright, rather than flattening out on the ground like it usually does. So I've gotten most of it pretty easily.

P.S. I realize I don't have a little poll to vote on this week, either. My sluggish brain couldn't think of anything fun to poll about, plus I've been testing out some other blogger "gadgets" which I may put up for awhile instead. I guess you'll have to wait and see what develops there. ;-)

Yum!

Those first home-grown tomatoes of the season are always such a treat. These are the first ones I've picked, and we ate the one on the left yesterday, sliced atop grilled burgers.

Usually the first ones picked are smaller, but these are BIG. The slices extended over the burgers and buns a ways. They sure were good! :-)

They're 'Better Boys', by the way.