Patio Plants are Going Strong: The latest pictures are in

I have to say, I have the greenest balcony I have ever seen.  I won't lie and say it is very tidy, but it definitely is very green.  The most exciting two pieces of news are:  the eggplant is finally making fruit and the pole beans I plated to grow over the balcony rails and up the side of the porch are making beans.

This is the biggest eggplant.

This one is still quite small.  I counted five of them that are definitely fruiting, and loads more flowers, as well.

You can't see the beans here, but the iPhone does not take close up pictures very well and the bean pictures just would not turn out.  When I pick a few I will take a picture of that.  Don't you think the beans look nice growing like this? 

Oh, I forgot.  There is one more piece of exciting news.  We got our first tomato off of the Belgian beauty heirloom tomato plant.  It is small, but cute.  I will let you know how it tastes.

This is the little guy before I picked him.  He is so cute.

The rest of his brothers (don't ask me why tomatoes are boys today) are much bigger and very lumpy.  They are not showing any color yet.

These two are hanging on the outside of the balcony railing.

There are s few hidden inside the foliage.  The pole beans have used some of the branches to climb up.  I am not too worried about that.

Here are a couple more future Belgian beauties.

This is what the eggplant looks like now.  If you look close you can see the leaves that were damaged by the aphid infestation.   Many of them have fallen off, and lots of new clean wonderful leaves have grown in.  It is really flowering strong.  Eggplants make such beautiful flowers.

This is the super hot jalapeno plant.  We have picked about 5 or 6 of these, and they are quite hot.  I was wondering if growing in a pot would make them wimpy, but it does not seem to have affected them.  They even made my husband cry and he loves hot peppers strait from the garden.  There he was crunching away on a whole pepper, with tears streaming down his cheeks saying, "wow, honey, these are great peppers."  I am not that into hot peppers.  I don't eat them strait and raw like that.  I like to make salsa and use them in my cooking.

This is the baby roma that I rescued.  It is just as big as its two larger twin brothers, but is a little behind.  It has has only one ripe tomato while its brothers have each had around 10.

I have always liked hens and chicks.  These are very cute.  If you don't remember, I found these in my mothers garden when she moved into a new house and we were clearing it to make room for vegetables.  They were very small and cute.  I thought they might be a smal variety, but they have grown quite large to prove me wrong.  I will definitely take these with me and plant them in the ground when we get a house.

Here are the lavender plants my daughter rescued in the same weekend.  I think they have grown as big as their pots will let them. We have picked and dried some flowers for my daughters magic potions, or should we call them chemical solutions.  She loves to mix things up and see what happens.

The cherry tomato has also run out of room in its pot, I believe.  It has really stopped growing.  It is still making tomatoes ( I took this picture after I picked the ripe ones), but I think it might not do very well in the future.  You can see the roots crowding in the pot.  Notes for next year: do not plat cherry tomatoes or romas in pots. Peppers, beans, and eggplants seem to do great though.  I think next time I will listen to the experts and plant determinant varieties of tomatoes.  There are several nice heirloom tomatoes that are determinate.  I bought one late this spring, the Bradley that I squeezed into the garden plot between the peppers and tomatoes.

This is one of the Roma twins.

The Rosemary is doing quite well.  I believe I will cut it back and dry the clippings for an herbal soap.  I do love rosemary soap.

This is the other Roma twin.

This picture is very blurry, but you can get the idea.  The cinnamon basil is huge and the flowers have gotten away from me.  I was trying to keep them clipped off, but there are just too many now.  The beans are loving them.  That is good.  That might be why everything else is fruiting so nice when it wasn't before.

This is a picture of the Belgian beauty from farther away.

Remember when I freaked out because I thought that my basil would go to seed and I wouldn't have any to go with my tomatoes when they were ripe?  I went and planted several small pots with cinnamon and Thai basil.  Well, those are now starting to bloom as well.

This is the prettiest one. The pots are kind of small. I was thinking I would transplant at least some of them into the big pot, but the other basil is so huge that is not possible,

I caught Cooper at it again.  I really should change his name to Ferdinand the Cow.

You can even see his teeth chomping on that leaf.  He is incredible.  Well, I hope you liked the virtual tour of the balcony garden.  Next up:  a tour through the community garden plot after the vandals have gone.

Thiefs or Vandals, I Can't Tell Which, Have Struck Again

When I drove up to our garden plot today I noticed the carnage before I even reached the parking spot.

Our poor sunflower, which was just starting to bloom, had been ripped up and torn apart and left to rot.  It made me very sad. I had planned to take pictures today for the blog of the beautiful flower.

They also helped themselves to some onions...

and some carrots.  They didn't take all of the carrots with them though.  The small or weird shaped ones got strewn around the garden and left to shrivel in the sun.  Senseless vandalism or picky, snobby thievery?  I don't know.  It appears that they took the onions with them, along with at least a few tomatoes and the flower of the sunflower plant.  None of those were anywhere to be found.

You can't really tell in this picture, but they did rip a bunch of the Early girl tomato bush's branches out of the cage and left several green tomatoes on the ground.  If you are going to steal produce, can't you at least leave the plant unharmed so that it can grow more?

Well I picked a few onions (there are very few left in the garden now) and a few carrots, the tomatoes that were left and the few peppers so that no one else could have time to notice them and pick them. I definitely have enough tomatoes for another batch of sauce when these all get fully ripe.  I took lots more pictures, but I will have to post them tomorrow.  There are a couple heirloom tomatoes, some small eggplants and the pole beans on the porch coming up tomorrow.

Wow, It Has Been a While

I am sorry I haven't updated this blog in a while.  I have been very busy with the garden and my summer job.  My aunt and I were featured in an article about the community garden in the local paper (The Wenatchee World) last Wednesday, on the front page! The article was very nice and the pictures weren't bad.  I won't say that we looked sexy, but at least you couldn't see my plumbers tan.  I will try to scan the article in or find a link to the online article or something.  I promise that this week I will take some new pictures and post some more interesting news.  Here are a few tidbits.

We have harvested pounds and pounds of tomatoes over the last few weeks.  We have made several batches of salsa, eaten too many BLTs, and I even made a batch of pasta sauce from scratch.

This is what is left of the sauce.  We couldn't wait to eat it.  It turned out pretty good. Onion, carrot, and celery with herbs and hot peppers cooked in olive oil until soft then added peeled, deseeded tomatoes and cooked and stirred until thick and saucey.

We already have this many more tomatoes waiting to be made into more sauce or salsa.  Can you beleive it? The Roma tomatoes are just starting to produce.

These are mostly Romas. Some are from the porch and some are from the garden.  The garden plant is definatly making more, especially since about half of the porch ones have end rot, but the porch plants are still making quite a few tomatoes.  The Belgian beauty heirloom tomato on the porch is finally making lots of green tomatoes, one has even started changing color.  The Superfantasitc that fell over is doing just fine although we did have to straiten it and restake it once again this week.  It is just too heavy with giant tomatoes.

These are Superfantastic tomatoes.  Aren't they huge?  These are my husbands hands.

We have also had gallons of Sungold cherry tomatoes.  We eat them one by one, or by the forkful in salads and put bowls of them out for guests.  My cousin's girlfriend loves them.  They are very tastey.  My husband took about two quarts to work in a bowl and they were gone in less than three hours.

Our cucumbers have been making lots of cukes as well.  I have yet to make any pickles, though.  I just finally bought some apple cider vineger today.  I will make pickles out of the next fresh batch.  We have made several salads with them and there are a few here in this box waiting for eating.

The danver short carrots just keep getting fatter and not longer.  We picked a couple this weekend.  The are great in the pasta sauce.  They add a little sweetness and lots of vitamin A.

I have been picking up the naturtium seeds from the porch when they fall.  I will save them for next year.  Hopefully they will be the creeping beautiful kind.

Here are a few peppers from the super hot jalapeno plant on the porch.  None of our pepper plants have really taken off yet.  It just started being hot enough here two weeks ago.  I espect them to start producing heavily over the nest few weeks.  The cucumber plants should increase yeild as well.

I am declaring victory over the eggplant aphids, finally.  The trick that finally worked may surprise you.  I told you I brought home some lady bug eggs form the community garden before, but those didn't make a dent, grew up and flew away.  Well, I stepped it up a few notches.  We had a huge population of aphids on the lower leaves of our sunflower in the community garden.  After a while I noticed a whole host of predators and parasitoids attacking them, so I picked about four leaves and brought them home and placed them in the eggplant pot.  Within days I noticed parasitized aphid mummies, predatory maggots, lacewing larvae, and ladybug beetle larvae having a hayday.  The new leaves and flowers that have grown this week are totally aphid free.  I have notice the first very small fruit developing, as well.  I am sure I would have had some earlier if not for the swarms of aphids on the flowers and shoots.

I promise I will have pictures of the garden and porch in the next couple of days.



Our Super Fantastic Tomato had a Not So Fantastic Day Yesterday

I went to the community garden to water the back part and pick the peas again, and I was met with a horrible suprise:



We had this tomato bush tied to a one inch square, four foot tall stake and inside a tomato cage with all of its larger branches tied up.  The huge tomatoes just got too heavy on one side and the whole thing tipped over, breaking the stake in the process.  It seems that the main stem of the bush is undamaged, thank goodness.  It didn't even wilt at all, but it was very alarming to see this when I drove up.  I went strait to Lowes and bought some more stakes to prop and tie it back up.  I even tied all of them to the fence.  I checked on it after 24 hours today, and it seems fine.  We are having a minor wind storm and it looks like it will hold.  I also trimmed a bunch of the larger branches back so that it wouldn't get tomatoes too far out on the side to weigh it down even more.  I went ahead and tied up the other tomato bushes, too.  They are all getting pretty big and tall and top heavy.

Peas, Cherry Tomatoes and Early Girls, Oh My! Community Garden Update

The community garden plot has really  changed in the three weeks since I last posted.  I didn't take pictures of everything, but the things that are really different were captured at twilight the a few days ago.  The pictures are either a bit dark or the flash went of, which looks kind of spooky.

My Aunt made us a sign for the garden on her laser etcher:

I love it.  I hope the bees can read, because I mean it, they are very welcome. Actually, they are cordially invited for as much nectar and pollen as they can hold.  As are the lady bugs for all the aphids they can stuff in their own and their children's mouths.

Here is one of the lovely ladies, now.  Suddenly, I remember the scene from A Bug's Life when the male lady bug gets very upset about someone assuming he is a girl just because he is a lady beetle.  Sorry.  I mean handsome man.

The carrots are really growing.  We thinned them out a bit more this weekend and were pleasantly surprised to find some very tasty carrots at the end of the stalks we grabbed onto.

These are some rainbow carrots we pulled up.  Some went directly into my cousin's mouth, so this is not all of them, but you get the idea.  They are colorful and delicious.

Here are some of our plain, boring old orange carrots.  The one with three legs is not really boring.  My aunt was reminded by this carrot to tell me about a contest that happens in some small village in England where locals bring in vegetables that look like naughty bits to a church to be judged.  I can't, for the life of me, think why this carrot reminded her of this story.  Hm.  Anyway.

This is a close up of the rainbow carrot stalks. You can tell which ones are most likely to be purple without actually pulling them up.  The other ones can be orange, yellow or even white.

The cucumbers are looking very nice.  It has been very warm here over the last couple weeks.  There are actually some small cucumbers starting to grow on the largest vines already.  I planted a few more hills of cucumbers to fill in the empty space up front, however only one survived the heavy bird predation. We now have a huge open area in front where the cucumber mounds are empty and the spinach and lettuce are pulled up.  The lettuce was going to seed, so it had to come up as well.

Somehow I missed taking a picture of the potatoes that have come up and started growing very nicely, but the hilling for those will take up some of the empty space.

We have been harvesting cherry tomatoes from the garden for two weeks, almost.  They are very  sweet and delicious.

This is my Aunt's hand with some of the first young cherry tomatoes.  The first ones were the tiniest.

We have been harvesting peas everyday the last few days.  The kids can't stay out  of them, and devour them raw and crunchy before we even get them into the fridge.  This last time I picked more than Molly could eat and this is what we have:

The peppers are Anaheim chilies and there are the first two ripe early girl tomatoes in the bowl as well.  My husband ate two of these chilies and said they weren't that hot right before the tears started coming out of his eyes.  He usually has a pretty high tolerance for spicy hotness, so I didn't eat one. These peppers are off that plant that looks kind of weird and sickly and the peppers are all half black. I wonder if that is why they are so hot.

Here is a picture of the first pea harvest before we went to my aunt and uncles house for barbecue stakes.  We snacked on raw peas and cherry tomatoes that night with dinner.

Here is a small purple bush bean.  I have some bad news about these beans.  I think the community garden went two days without watering last week.  I usually check on it everyday and water if it looks like it hasn't been done, but last week when I got there after skipping a day, it looked really dry and half of the bush beans' leaves had fallen off.  They look really sad now.  I hope they pull out of it.

This is a picture from last week of the scarlet runner beans.  There is now at least one small bean developing on one of these plants.  I remember from last time I grew these that it took a while for the flowers to start setting, but once they did there were beans everywhere.  I hope that happens now.

The early girl tomato is really laden with fruits and they are just starting to turn red.  I picked the first two yesterday.  They were small, but some of these green ones are huge.

This is the super fantastic which is really getting loads of tomatoes on it.  They are not very big yet, but they are getting bigger every day.

It really is a bushy mess inside its cage, but I just haven't trimmed it back yet.

Here are a couple of the Roma tomatoes.  We are going to get a lot of these a bit later.  This plant, if you don't remember, was quite a bit smaller and a little behind the others.

In this picture you can see three small pepper plants.  The front largest one is the new garden salsa pepper I planted a couple of weeks ago the other two are Cheyenne and jalapeno that are finally recovering from being chewed on by my cat, Cooper.  The Jalapeno actually is starting to set fruit.

This is the heirloom tomato I planted at the same time as the new peppers, the Bradley pink tomato.

This tiny pepper plant is a Thai hot pepper.  It already has little peppers on it.  I am a little scared to try these.  The one is back is the jalapeno that was pilfered from earlier in the year with small new fruit showing up every day.

The coordinator of the community garden asked me last week if it was okay if he gave my number to a photographer for our local paper, The Wenatchee World, who had mentioned he might want to get our picture with our garden for a story in the paper.  We haven't heard from anyone yet, but that would be kind of cool.  I don't really like having my picture taken, unless I am wearing a costume, but I am proud of the garden my Aunt and I have been able to grow so far this year.  It looks pretty nice with the custom laser etched plant stakes and sign and the huge tomato plants.  Our tomatoes are, by far, the largest, greenest and most fruitingest tomatoes in the whole community garden, so far.  I am sure some of the other people's will catch up. There are some that look very nice.  I am not putting down any other gardeners gardens at all.  Most of the gardens are very nicely done, but our tomatoes are the best, so far.  One person actually asked me if we were sneaking in fertilizer.  I won't lie and say we never considered the idea, but we haven't added anything but seeds and water to our plot.  It was nicely composted and tilled when we got there this spring.  I think the difference has been that we have been supplimenting the automatic sprinklers with our own almost nightly waterings and keeping the weeds pulled pretty well.  Have a good week, until I have something new to post.