Tag: plants

I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect from these, having compulsively picked up so many varieties of tomato at the plant nursery. As it turned out, they are a sort of cherry tomato. Sweet, yes, but the can’t even begin to compare to my Sweet Millions.The plant is a heavy producer, we had way more of these little guys than we could eat. The were very pretty in salads and salsa, but you could easily get that color from a more flavorful tomato. I won’t plant this variety again, but I’m glad I tried something new.

A bowl full of cherries!

Cherry tomatoes, that is. Our all-time favourite sweet summer snacker, the Sweet Millions variety of cherry tomato is one we didn’t even plant this year. But enough volunteers came up to keep us well supplied for tomato-basil-mozzarella salad. And we still had enough to share with our neighbor.

But I can tell you, I will definitely plant this variety- on purpose- next year. Picking through the tangle of volunteers sprawled all over the ground was no fun. I have half a mind to try them in the hanging baskets on my porch…

Installing a soaker hose in my garden this year has proven to be one of the best decisions I have made in a long time.

It started out with just one run, then we added another and another, totalling 75 feet of soaker hose. This completely covers both beds along the house and the crescent bed. So unlike last year, if I am too hot or tired to stand out in the yard when I get home from work, the plants don’t miss a watering. I can just pop outside when I untangle Oli’s rope (inevitable) and turn the faucet on low. Leave the soaker on for a few hours, then turn it off.

And when we were away for several days in a row, I’m sure my plants would have wilted completely, except that I was able to leave the soaker on a very slow trickle. Plus I think it is probably a better use of water, wasting less due to evaporation and overspraying. Whenever Oliver sees the hose, he thinks it means play time. I’m sure we waste tons of water just playing. Never during a drought, thought- we are very responsible that way.

We finally had a long day of drizzle and rain showers yesterday, but for about 3 weeks before that it has been pretty dry. Aside from the occasional violent storm, of course, but they are not good for watering.

So, here is my advice. If you have a garden, lay a soaker hose. You won’t regret it. But try to do it when you are planting, or just after. We found it a bit more challenging to lay the second two sections because the garden had really taken off by then. It is much easier to weave the hose around small plants.

Now, maybe next year we will finally get a rain barrel, then I can hook the soaker hose up to the rain barrel and all my watering will be taken care of by mother nature, as it is supposed to be. Rainwater is better for plants anyway, they don’t care for all the chlorine and other things used to treat our water.

Three of the four pepper plants have peppers so far.

I think this is my Golden Summer pepper, the first one to appear. It got to this size and has just been hanging out there. I couldn’t tell when it would be ready, so I looked it up. It has been this color for a while, but I guess it still has some color changing to do.

Golden Summer Bell Pepper- lime green to light yellow to golden orange-yellow

This one is a good size and has also looked like this for a while.Purple Bell Pepper- green to chocolate brown or purple

These appear to be an ornamental pepper, albeit edible. Sweet Pickle Pepper- mature at 2″ and fully ripened when deep red or purple

The White Bell pepper has yet to make an appearance.

White Bell Pepper- white to yellow to red

While this photo was taken about a week ago, my zucchini and summer squash plants have not really grown much bigger than this. As you can see, this is that last 20% of the veg garden that has not been weeded yet. Could the crab grass, clover and other weeds be the cause of my squash’s slow growth?

The zucchini are normally filling the kitchen table by this time of year. I bought plants this year, got them in the ground at a reasonable time, but they aren’t doing very well. The soil here is decent, and I’ve never know zucchini to be that particular. My mom is having the same problem and we did get our plants at the same nursery. But one of my coworkers was talking about here zucchini harvest already.

Is anybody else out there having trouble with their summer squash?