Green things

By now, word has probably leaked around that the EtsyOrganicTeam is temporary closed for redirection, recentering, rebuilding, and a bunch of other re's. I've been working with Brenda, of NaturalStar, and Maura, of GreenWorks, and we've been making leaps towards a new, fresh start. Make sure to check back soon for an announcement that we're open and ready to roll!

Now for a few garden shots.

This is a flower on my asparagus pea vine. Look at the flower closely. Think. Giggle to yourself. Move on. :)


Here are some greenies. I believe this plant is a Black Zebra tomato, but I can't recall for sure. The hail didn't keep these guys too down, and they're putting out flowers and little tomatoes like crazy. With my luck this year, a hornworm will come along and gnaw them down.


This is a spontaneously occurring pumpkin. The vine put out this 10 lb (and growing!) beauty in a week. It's actually the variety of pumpkin that the Cindarella coach was modeled after, which is kinda neat. Can't wait for pumpkin custards!

Bounce back!

We just got back yesterday after a week at the Mayo Clinic, and oh my how the gardens have changed!

In a week's time:

• grass has done some damage in my flower beds
• my asparagus peas are podding
• my pumpkin vines spontaneously produced a 10 lb beauty (still needs a few more days on the vine, but it's lookin' good!)
• little green tomatoes are showing their faces
• my compost caught on fire
• my lone hydrangea is in full bloom
• the first fig of the year was picked

Tomorrow, I'll take some pictures of the upcoming bounty. It rained like the dickens today, so I just took a quick run through the raindrops to check things out.

I may also see about getting my butt in gear and putting together some new kits for my shop. I've been dragging my heels on that, but I have some plans and some inspiration fresh and ready to go!

Recovery

After the hail storm, I took a bunch of cuttings of my tomatoes and thought I'd share a down and dirty how-to.

First thing is to identify a prime bit of broken tomato that you'd like to salvage. Branches work just as well as main stems, so pick a bit that has most of its leaves intact and minimal bruising on the stem. The piece I chose was a sucker from the main tomato plant.

You can see how the stem was broken and pretty much destroyed. Above all of the breaks, though, was a fairly sturdy vine. This is where I chose to cut.


Now that all of the decision making has been done and you've committed to a cut, the easy part comes. Plop that puppy into a pot. Since tomatoes root along the stems, I like to put a couple of inches (depending on the size of the cutting) under ground. This'll give you a pretty solid root mass in a shorter period of time.


I laid the bottom of the cutting across the potting soil in a 1 gallon pot. I bent the top of the vine upwards and packed potting mix around the stem. I watered thoroughly and gave the little puppy a squirt of Superthrive for added punch.

And this is what it looks like a week later!

Several of the cuttings are flowering and showing signs of greenies again. What a relief!

Oh hail.

You heard right! HAIL.

About a week ago, we had a normal, everyday thunderstorm that dropped a nice bucket of hail all over my growing plantation. I'd just gotten the Florida weave rocking, and everything was beaten down quite nicely. Entertainingly, our roof, two miles away, survived without a dent. Drat!

We went over to survey the damage, and I took long cuttings from about half of the plants and have them going at home. They're doing pretty well, so I hope we'll be back in gear (albeit extremely behind schedule!) shortly.

Talk about taking the wind outta someone's sale. Mother nature, sometimes you royally stink. I wish they had home growers' crop insurance!!

Tutorial on how to take tomato cuttings should be up soon. ;)

More Tomato Madness

I think this is going to be the last of the list for this year. I'm not going to hold my breath that the others are going to germinate, but they'll get to sit and wait for a couple of weeks before I completely give up.

Since last post:

Cherokee Chocolate
Chocolate Stripe
Costoluto Genovese
Coyote
Great White
Italian Tree
Kosovo
Marglobe
Marlowe Charleston
Mr Stripey
Nepal
Old Brooks
Old German
Omar's Lebanese
Opalka
Paul Robeson
Pink Ruffled
Polish
Red Zebra
Roma
Ruby Gold
Silvery Fir Tree
Speckled Roman
Super Snow White
Tigrovy

Hopefully, the rain will stop and I'll be able to start my squishes and corn and melons. Woohoo!

So far...

I've been obsessively checking my babies for germination, and I've got a few heads popping up. I'm very, very behind this year and just finished my tomato sowing a few days ago, so the list will get longer. So far, here's what's up and leafing:

Amish Paste
Azoycha
Big Rainbow
Black Prince
Black from Tula
Black Sea Man
Brandywine
Caspian Pink
Cour di Bue
Dinner Plate
Early Glee
Esther's Cherry
Fuzzy Peach
Green Bell Pepper
Green Zebra
Hank
Heinz 1439
Kellogg's Breakfast
Marianna's Peace
Schimmieg Stuffer
Supper Beefsteak
Transparent Yellow
White Wonder
Yellow Brandywine
Zapotec Pleated

I also have a handful of eggplant and pepper varieties that are going strong, but I don't have that list entered yet. I haven't started my corn, squashes, or gourds yet.

I have an illness. A serious, tomato bourne illness. I can't wait for shredded Jerusalem artichoke, chopped tomato, fresh basil, and parmesan salad! Spring is here and the madness has begun.

Gotta get moving.

Spring is officially here! Only a couple more nights are expected to be below freezing, and I've got soooo much stuff to do. I'm a bit behind this year, but that's what I get for always finding a new way to get sick.

I've got a handful of seed orders that are still in the mail and I want them NOW! I said I wasn't going to do any orders, but I broke down and decided, with the newly expanded space, that I must have new stuff to fill it in. My tomato trading group seeds should be here Tuesday, and that's what I'm most excited about. I'd love to top 90 varieties grown this year, but we shall see.

Now for the master list:

- clean up property; bricks to the back, unusable corner, hay raked in
- start more seeds!
- get a roll (or two!) of concrete reinforcement wire for more tomato cages
- get water hooked up

New things!

I decided to change my avatar. I may change it back to the one I've had since I joined (over a year now!), but I figured I'd give this one a try for a little while and see if I adjust. Talk about living on the wild side, eh?

I've decided to do a fluffnflowers sale from 28 Nov.-1 Dec. in honor of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. If you haven't already checked out my shop, you might want to take advantage of this sale before the spring rush!

Buy 3 packs of seeds or $9 equivalent (not including S&H) and get a free pack of seeds! AND 15% off of any CUT GLASS growing kit.

Just another flower.

I got back from dogsitting for my mom, and things are blooming! My asparagus peas are blooming with the most charming dark red flowers. I'll try and get a picture of those later. I collected some seeds from a gorgeous heirloom tomato -- Tigerlike -- and I'll be offering those later on in the year. It was tasty, too!

Here's a picture of my picotee begonia. This is the first blooming, and they're mostly yellow/orange with pink/red picotees. Rather fun and very pretty.

Whoops! Slacked off on the blog!

I'm about as flighty as the big, white butterflies that are all over my gardens, these days, and completely forgot about adding to my blog. It's been so hot outside that I don't even have the excuse of being outside!

My glads are in full bloom, and they're blooming in sequence again. When we moved into this house, I had a bunch of mixed gladiolus that I dug and transplanted. Well, I don't quite know what I grabbed and didn't have them labeled, so now I have an assortment of varieties that bloom all summer. It starts out with the white and magenta flowers, then come the vibrant orange (just starting now), and then the pale, pale peach and pale pink, finishing up in the autumn with a bright red. There's genius in my forgetfulness, apparently, and I get a season of beautiful flowers that I can take inside or give to my MIL.



And, for the weekly tomato, report, here's a greeny off of one of my plants (can't remember which one) that's about the size of a tennis ball. I'll have to see if I can't get a picture of the white calf's heart -- very cool to look at.

Fruit and flowers.

My beebalms are blooming! I tend to gather collections of the same plant, and beebalm is one of those little collections. I currently have three flavors, including Monarda 'Lambada' that I just got a few days ago.

Here are the two that are currently blooming. The hot pink is probably my favorite, but this is the first year that the purple has bloomed and I'm pretty pleased with it. 'My' hummingbird and some of his harem were hanging out over there, today, and the butterflies are going crazy. I'll go out later and see if I can't stay still enough to get some bird shots. :)



The horsenettle in the yard (devil's tomato, as it's sometimes referred to) is blooming, but my real tomatoes are ahead of the game. They've got flowers and fruit. Here's a greeny off of my Silvery Fir Tree tomato. It's currently winning with five baby greenies!

Mmm, more tomato flowers!

I can't wait until we have fresh tomatoes! All of my tomato plants have flowers all over them, and it'll be soooo nice to have a tomato with taste again.

Here's a monster flower from one of my Brandywine plants:



I don't think I've ever had a single flower on my Brandywines, but this one has the most multiple flower I've ever seen, I think. It looks like a little monster, but it's pretty cool. The tomato is probably going to be a big, ugly, fused thing!