Cold Hardy Tomatoes

The tomato plants made it through a little freezing weather but tonight is going to be below 30. I'm going to have to do something before night falls to keep them from dying overnight.

I plan to pick the peppers and let the bush go. We already have more peppers than we will use this winter and have some still in the freezer from last year.

Garden Harvest

The garden is growing well. Here are a few of the picks from yesterday.  We already ate one of the zucchini and a few of the cherry tomatoes.  The peppers we have planned for a curry although we haven't decided which kind to make yet.  It will almost definitely involve potatoes though since, as far as we can tell, potatoes seem to go well in every curry dish.

 

There are plenty more tomatoes out there as well as some more forming zucchini and peppers. There is also some squash that should be ready soon and hopefully some cucumber.

 

I planted some green onion from seed recently and it's taking off well enough.  It isn't huge but it's already a few inches tall. Quicker than I expected.

 

It's supposed to continue raining for some time this week which hopefully won't interfere too much with the outdoor activities we have planned. The percent isn't too high so maybe it will be mostly morning showers.  We can deal with that.

Returning Peppers

As usual every year some pepper plants come back up.  This time we have a really early sprouting and I'm sure we can be expecting quite a few from this plant this year.

More Survivors of Summer

I've looked around some more and found further survivors of the summer heat.
Up front there is still a clump of chives. Half of the lavender plants made it, unfortunately that means that half of them didn't. The purple cone flowers have some green left. Since they come up every year from the root they'll be fine. One pepper plant is springing back even though the last peppers it made are still hanging on the plant shrivled up.
Out back the tomatoes of course have a few survivors as previously mentioned. My day lilly plant from down south is hanging in there and some of the oxalis around it has shown up again. The onions didn't make it. I got a few out of the dirt but they weren't any bigger than my finger.
I need to check on the grape vine. It might be either dead or needing some TLC.

Chopsticks!

That could easily be an exclamation. It's also my non-patented way of dealing with tomato horn worms completely organically and chemical free. Well, ok, I use plastic chopsticks but I don't think that the plastic leaches out enough chemicals to consider it to any degree, otherwise I would also have to stop using the garden hose and city water since I know that the lines going to the house are PVC.
Anyway, I found that the little buggers are not as fond of the tomatoes as they are of one of the pepper plants. He had nearly chewed through the entire plant when I found him this morning. The tomato plant he started on was only slightly chewed before he spotted his goal.
I'm going to have to be more strict when examining the plants in the back now. Once the horn worms come they don't seem to stop that quickly.

Room to Grow

We have peppers! In this area we have five pepper plants, labels kept with them so we would know what they were when we got around to picking peppers off of them. Really though it shouldn't be that hard if they've ripened well enough. If I knew my peppers better then I would probably be able to tell from the look of the plant. They really do look different.

On the front porch we have another area of plant growth. The lavender really wants to be planted in a sunnier place and has decided to reach for the sun as best as it can. The marigolds are hanging off the other side apparently content with their pot in life.

Out back the garden is doing well enough. It really has grown since this picture especially in the back where the onions have taken off. It's mostly green now. Some of the tomatoes in the middle don't look so well but I'm going to wait until the tomatoes ripen before I decide what to do with the plants. I think I might have to remove some of them. Not to worry though, I have plenty of small tomato plants that are eager to take their place.

Spring Seedlings

Planting has been pretty successful this season. My wife has planted a lot of seeds for various veggies and flowers. Some of them have already broken through the ground and shown us their little leaves while others are still germinating. The transplants have been very successful. I have an entire new bed of peppers and tomato plants. One of the tomato plants didn't like the watering too much today but I believe it will pop back upright, didn't check after I went in. Should rain again soon so I'll just let it be for a while. On the fig front the figs are getting big. I just have to hope and water. As long as the figs are strong the wind shouldn't knock them off.

Growing Herbs

It's amazing how much money growing a few herbs can save you. In the last week we probably saved twenty or so dollars by not having to buy the herbs we're growing.
Among the recently used herbs and plants were, parsley, sage, rosemary, lavender, thyme, lamb's ear, mint and chives. On top of that we had beets, peppers, onions and green onion.

Bell Peppers and Papaya

I have managed to keep the bell pepper plants alive and well throug the heat and they have rewarded me with a few flowers. No, there aren't any peppers yet but you have to have flowers first anyway. It's about time I thinned them again since many of the plants leaves are touching.

The other plant I have managed to sprout, though nothing more, is the papaya. Once again I just planted seeds from the fruit from the store and *POP* up they came. Ok, so I watered them a lot too, but then again who doesn't water their plants at least some of the time? They're planted along with some spearmint and zinias. I don't think these plants are specifically on the companion planting guides that I've seen but I don't know what kind of plants they are anyway.

The only problem I see in the near future is the unbearable heat that is forcasted to be coming our way, 90's to low 100's... Why me, why me, and why everyone else who has to bear the heat of summer, why?

Front Garden Layout

There's more to it, but below are pictutes from the roof again.

This time it's of the front gardens. I've placed them so they are in order. The top edge of the top picture is the street we live on and the right side is our driveway. The tree shown is a 9 year old oak that came with the house. I can only estimate it's age from what our neighbor tells us.

The bottom of the bottom picture is the walkway leading up to the front door. The right side is our rock garden and the left side next to it has our pepper plants, mums, hyacinth and iris.

The planting strip along the upper part of the gravel walk has lamb's ear, parsley, lettuce, cabbage and sage. The lettuce can be seen in both pictures.

The large cloud of yellow is our fennel. I really should figure out something to make with it before it dies off...

On the corner of the drive and street there are two small lavender bushes. Too bad most of the plants aren't recognizable here.

The middle round area in the top picture is where we decided to put the mint, chives, and other assorted herbs.