GROWING THINGS

[cariad]

Gorgeous, monrein. Simply gorgeous.

[cariad]

We have wee bitty tomatoes on our heirloom tomato plant now, resembling little green pearls. So exciting. Our organic tomato plants from the environmental centre also seem to be doing well, but no flowers yet. The marigolds my older son gave me for Mother's Day have really taken off, too. No flowers there yet, either, but very green. We have taken all the plants inside, to keep bugs and rodents from eating them first.

We received our first CSA drop today, and they usually give us potted herbs toward the beginning of the season. Today we received a type of plant that looks like a violet, only it's a 'Johnny Jump Up' edible flower. I have eaten violets before, when my family went for an herb walk with a professional herbalist last year. We are going to replant the flowers in our herb box, and hopefully will have herbs to add soon to keep them company. As we learnt last year, violets have somewhere around 3 times the vitamin C that oranges do. However, vitamin C is water soluble and so sadly washing the flowers pulls much of that off.

[Bill Peckham]

You made me go look - after a careful survey I found just two "green pearls" on one of my plants - the cherry tomato. Lots of flowers all around, some wilted and falling off, hopefully they were pollinated.

The weather is not cooperating - sunny days are always a few days away when I look at the forecast and somehow they never come. We haven't gotten above 75 this year.

[paris]

There are at least a dozen small tomatoes on our plant.  A couple about 3". Tiny little zuchinni, only about an inch long.  They are so cute.  Lots of blooms on the zuchinni and squash.  And tons of blooms on the pepper plants.   Hot hot weather and not much rain, so we are constantly trying to keep them watered.   This has been fun.  Now, I just hope things keep growing so we can actually eat some of them.   

[rookiegirl]

I'm better at growing plants.  But this year I started an herb garden.  So far so good.  I have Mints, Basil, Chives, Rosemary, Oregano, Sage, Italian Parsley.  They all look healthy and I just keep using them.  The more I cut the more they grow.  My favorite are the Basil.  I just love tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella. I'm just glad the Mints are in a separate pot b/c they are HUGE.  I've made my friends Mojito and added the mints to my hot tea.

[cariad]

You made me go look - after a careful survey I found just two "green pearls" on one of my plants - the cherry tomato. Lots of flowers all around, some wilted and falling off, hopefully they were pollinated.

The weather is not cooperating - sunny days are always a few days away when I look at the forecast and somehow they never come. We haven't gotten above 75 this year.

Wow, that's worse than our weather. We have had quite a few days in the 80s, finally. Bring on the heat and the sun.... and the tomatoes!

Sounds like a very promising start, Paris!

Ah, Rookiegirl, mint. We had some growing behind our house in Michigan. That plant will take over anywhere that you let it. It forms this unbelievable root system, a giant cord that runs parallel to the surface, like an irrigation pipe, with a plant shooting up every foot or so. Sounds like you found a great use for it - we barely used any of ours, and the stuff does not die. You are wise to keep it in solitary confinement.

[cariad]

Our tomatoes have blossom end rot! I happened to tune to NPR when they had a local phone-in program on with a UW-extension master gardener. (Gwyn has taken a course from them - he loved it.) A woman called in to say her tomatoes were rotting from the bottom up, and the gardener said it was most likely blossom end rot due to too little calcium. She said that inconsistent moisture from the drought/flood cycle we've been in all summer can cause it. Apparently there is a calcium spray we could buy to make up for our watering laziness, but we have enough survivors that I don't want to bother. We also get marvelous tomatoes from our CSA, so we hardly need more, and these tomato plants were free from the ecological centre anyhow. I don't even know what variety they are, but most of them are shaped like little bell peppers. I have pulled off all the rotting tomatoes to divert energy to the healthy ones.

My currant tomato plant that I received as a gift from a restaurant on Mother's Day is a riot of scandalously delicious, yellow tomatoes. Every time I go out to the balcony, I have one (or two). Gwyn thought the birds were eating them. No, just me. We also were hosting a mystery plant in one of our pots, until Gywn sent a pic to our CSA farmer and he eventually identified it as pigweed. I laughed and laughed. Then I pulled the weed up before it could crowd out my superb rosemary. We have cilantro coming up quickly, but our baby lettuce seems to have mostly died out (we did harvest it twice, and it was delectable!) I hope to get enough cilantro to make a fab salsa before summer is over.

Next year I will skip the regular tomatoes and just go for the currant variety. That plant has been so easygoing, while providing an abundance of the best tomatoes.

[Bill Peckham]

I had a couple with blossom rot too but a few of the many survivors are just starting to orange so it won't long.


I'm glad I planted a second crop of lettuce in one of my oak barrels, it's doing great. And I've been able to have a carrot a day for a couple weeks, with enough to see me through the end of the month.

[Stoday]

I grew a beard about 30 years ago. It started out nicely dark, but all the colors have drained away now and it's white.