The wait is over......

Finally, we picked our first tomato, a Pink Grapefruit (plus a few Snow White cherries). We sliced it and ate it right away, even though it was slightly green. It was luscious!!! There is nothing like the first juicy tomato of the summer. Of course, in my case, it's usually almost fall before I get my first tomato. We have lots of jalapeno peppers, seen above in various stages of green, purple, and red. This is my mutant jalapeno; it isn't supposed to look like this. Next year my pepper plants will be isolated from each other.

It is official; the garden is out of control. The squash and cucumber plants are taking over the back yard, even as some of them are slowly dying. At least, I thought they were dying, but they are getting new leaves. I almost wish the cucumbers would die. I am so sick of cucumbers. I have four plants this year; next year I may only plant two. But we are still enjoying the squash, especially the lemon squash, and I will still plant several kinds again next year; maybe I'll get some more mutants.

The herb garden's glory days seem to be over for the summer. I cut back the spent flowers from the lamb's ear and the lavender cotton a long time ago. The anise hyssop and the yarrow seem to be finished blooming. I need to dead-head the purple cone flowers, but a couple of days ago we saw a little yellow finch perched on a flower head eating the seeds. I guess I don't have to dead-head just yet. The only thing left to bloom are the roses, which should still do well for quite a while, now that the Japanese beetles have moved on. The germander still looks good, even though it isn't blooming anymore. At least now I can walk in the garden without the continual humming of bumble bees. I leaned to co-exist with them but they still made me nervous.

I have killed six sage plants. Tricolor, bicolor, every color of sage you can imagine, I have killed it. Why???

Butterfly Festival

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Butterfly Festival at Close park. They have a butterfly garden, which, strangely, appeared to be butterfly free. All the butterflies were in the new butterfly house, along caterpillars and demonstrations of the entire butterfly life cycle. It was geared to educating children, but it seemed the house was just as full of adults hoping to see a chrysalis transform to a butterfly.

No such luck, but there were plenty of beautiful butterflies to chase around the building with my camera.

We had been to Close Park before and had enjoyed the rose garden and the hosta garden, then walked around the lake. But until this event, we had no idea of the many gardens that were in the park. There is an English garden, a Lily garden, an ornamental grass garden, and many others. This will be a place I will return to again and again to see what is blooming throughout each season. Did I mention that it is free?

The amazing thing is that the garden is strictly a volunteer effort. Donations and public funds keep the garden up and running, and each garden is designed and maintained by volunteers. Ultimately, there are a total of 41 different garden styles planned. Volunteers (Friends of the Garden) have worked for years to raise interest and money for a Botanical Center in the park. That goal has been reached, surprisingly enough, during the most difficult economic environment in many years. The Center is scheduled to open in 2010.

As for my garden, the Black Beauty zucchini is dying and the Lemon squash is producing heavily and taking over the back yard. The Lemon cucumbers are doing pretty good, as well. The rat-tailed radish plant is still producing, thankfully in much smaller quantities. Long beans everyday, along with a few snow peas. The zinnias are blooming all over the place, but they look horrible because of the blasted Japanese beetles. I have a row of pink crepe myrtles (plus one white one, it was an accident) along the neighbor's fence in back , but they only have blooms on the bottom because the beetles apparently started feasting at the top of the plants.

I'm not tired of squash anymore since we started grilling it or roasting it in the oven. Steamed or sauteed squash was really getting old. I'm still waiting impatiently for some tomatoes. I found two perfectly ripe Snow White cherries on the plant this evening, but something had partially eaten them. I'm really not into sharing my tomatoes with birds or rabbits.

Summer Dreams

We had a bumper crop of tomatoes a few years ago. Aah, those were the days. Since then it's been too much rain or not enough, in addition to worn out soil. I don't have enough beds to rotate everything as often as I should, so the tomatoes have been planted in the same place for about five years now.

This year I eliminated an old herb garden and planted fewer tomato plants in this smaller location. Eight tomato and four pepper plants, to be exact, in a bed approximately 8 x 10. This means I absolutely have to keep after the suckers; no slacking this year! If I don't pluck the tomatoes everyday, the tomato bed becomes a jungle faster than you can blink. With fifteen plants, I just did not keep up. I'm hoping the smaller bed (also closer to the house) will make the job manageable this year.

Tomato plants for 2009: Golden Pineapple, Gold Medal, Pineapple, Snow White Cherry, Pink Grapefruit, Pink Brandywine, Henderson's Crimson Cushion, and Rose.

Pepper Plants: Alma Paprika, Napoleon Sweet, Chinese Giant, and Purple Jalapeno.

Pink Grapefruit and Pineapple are the only new varieties I tried this year. Snow White Cherry and Brandywine are staples that are required in our garden every year as we can't seem to live without them. No new pepper plants this year; I'm just hoping they will finally produce some peppers, for a change. I amended the soil in the new bed, so hopefully we will have an abundant crop like we used to have.