Monday, July 28, 2008

Garden progress

The tomatoes are ripening! I've got one Amish paste ready to pick, and many more green on the vine, above. This mutant variety at left is a "hybrid large red." That's what the tag says. I got it at the Extension plant sale. But I bet it'll taste good!
I have eight (or is it nine?) tomato plants tied up to two trellises. But one plant that I meant to find a trellis for I never did. So it's a ground tomato, an Early Girl:
I know that's bad for tomatoes, but that's the way it goes.

I also have a wee trellising problem with the cellini beans. Some of them have decided they'd rather colonize the overgrown oregano. Could it be Nature's cooking instructions?

I'm going to run some string up and try to redirect the vines rather than attempt to untangle them. They're already blooming profusely. I should probably cut back the oregano, too.

Much as I have given the salvia out front a haircut. That's an untrimmed mop on the left, below, and a shorn one on the right. They should bloom again now.
I was all excited to find some baby cukes on the plants that are a little too shaded by the bolting arugula. Until I worked my way around to the other side of the patch while weeding and found a grown-up one!
The green peppers are also coming along nicely.
Finally, I have a word of advice: Be careful where you put down your weeding tools. I spent a fruitless several minutes digging through the dumpster with my garden fork, sure that I'd dumped out my dandelion digger along with a bucket of weeds.

Only to discover later that I had stashed it safely out of sight under the bolting cilantro.
I'm going to look out for yellow plastic "caution" tape ("police line do not cross!") and snip off a length to tie on my digger. Whose bright idea was it to make the handle green??

10 comments:

  1. Hooray for veggies! I read something somewhere about growing tomatoes from a hanging pot, and just letting them spill towards the ground - sounds easier than trellising!

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  2. Wow, exciting! It must be fun to see them around your garden, but it's a lot of work as well, I guess!

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  3. I wish I had a garden. It must be great fun to see everything grow. My mother has alot of plants and also a greenhouse, it´s peacefull there.

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  4. your garden looks great...those tomatoes are going to be spot on....

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  5. I absolutely love that funky looking tomato! And it is true that great care must be taken with the misplacement of gardening tools. I nearly sat on the business end of a hard rake the other day.

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  6. I bought some tape in blaze orange --- you know, the color used by crossing guards and hunters --- at Home Depot. Then I wrapped it around the handle of my favorite garden tool, which happens to be an old steak fork that works better, for me, than any standard garden tool. This has saved me many wasted hours of searching around the yard for my missing fork.

    I also love that mutant tomato!

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  7. Your peppers and tomatoes look great. Good tip too for the tools I'll have to try it

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  8. Vicki, I've heard thpse work pretty well. But you have to be super-diligent about watering.

    Blue, it's worth the work!

    Cecilia, even a potted plant on a windowsill is comforting. I'd love to have a greenhouse.

    Thanks, db. I suspect there's a lot of sauce in my future.

    Alecto, ouch! Don't do that.

    Pam, that's a handy idea!

    Breezy et al., I confess, I committed petty larceny last night and "stole" some stray tape from a construction site.

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  9. That is an ugly looking tomato, 3rd one down. If it ripens, it might be give me some comeptition for World's Ugliest Tomato!

    Your garden looks great, by the way!

    Carol, May Dreams Gardens

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  10. Thanks, Carol! I'll keep you posted on the mutant.

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