Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Little helper

Today I headed outside just to check on some plant seedlings, and I heard a loud buzzing noise. As I looked up I saw a swarm of bees less than 10 feet away from the back door! Holy smokes! The dog was immediately called in and door shut firmly until they passed. I've never seen that before. I was very glad that Gray was eating and Haley was napping and not outside.

Ryle was a good garden helper today. He is very interested in the chamomile that we are growing. The first time I picked it he asked what it was for and when he found out you can make tea with it, he has been trying to pick it. Today was harvest #2.

Now I just wish he still liked tomatoes, we should have a pretty good turn-out this year. We won't have the most glamorous variety, but I'm hoping to rectify that soon. We have 1 black prince, 1 black cherry, 1 pineapple, 1 cherokee purple, at least 1 super sweet 100 (and one scraggly plant that is still giving us a handful of ss100 cherry tomatoes a week), 2 'patio tomato' plants and maybe a few more heirloom varieties soon. I'm slightly obsessed with tomatoes, even though we really don't have lots of space.

Every year I try to decide what plants get some of the precious space, but then I get sidetracked and fall for some plant that I hadn't anticipated wanting in the garden. I think we will focus on the typical home gardener favorites this year: tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, eggplant, herbs, squash and some greens. Drool.....

Happy gardening all!


3 comments:

  1. I'm a big tomato person too. I wish I had extended my garden so I could plant more. Maybe next year. I did buy 4 more Roma plants today. I want to make sauce this year. How are you caging your tomatoes?

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  2. Do you freeze or can your tomatoes?

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  3. Rmgales - I am still trying to decide which I like better. I always seem to have escapees from the cages, but the bamboo sticks look ungainly in the garden. For smaller tomato plants I use cages, for plants that will be larger than my cages I purchased some 'tomato towers' from Home Depot. I like the towers for the huge heirloom tomatoes because I can adjust support to the plant as needed, and they break down and store easily. Good luck with the Roma's!

    RG- last year I didn't plant enough tomatoes to have a large enough amount to can easily. So I ended up only canning a small amount and mostly freezing them as they came in. But we ate a large amount fresh, my favorite way to use the homegrown tomatoes. I am hoping to have enough to try out different recipes and can more. You?

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