The tomato plants are getting totally out of control. taller than the porch railing in front.



same ones


new tomato garden growing well


old tomato garden growing great also


from the other side


I have them in a sack also

Wow, I bet you are going to have tons of tomatoes Rita.

I am impatiently waiting till they start to ripen. Yesterday I did pick five cucumbers and picked four more today.

WOW!! Those are huge!!! You will be canning tomatoes soon (and cuckes)!!

Christine, I don't can. Don't know how and don't want to learn. I do plan on making refriderator pickles and I do cook down tomatoes when I have plenty and freeze the sauce to use in the winter as base for spagetti sauce and chili. I haven't done that in afew years now as I didn't have so many tomatoes. I do give lots and lots away as everyone seems to want home grown tomatoes.

Rita, I keep forgetting to ask if you have a problem with the straw growing in your flower beds? My friend down the street has chickens, and she always spreads their old straw around the backyard for the winter. Every spring, she has it growing everywhere!

I'm growing pickling cucumbers for the first time in many years, and can't wait to make bread & butter pickles out of them! Picked the first 6 two days ago, and I better go check the plants again right now before I forget. The plants are covered in little cucumbers! I just hope these 6 don't go bad before I get enough for a big batch.

Unfortunately I forgot to plant any of the small pickleing cukes. By the time I thought of it I already had so many varieties of cucumber planted (Salad Bush, Marketmore, Straight Eight, Burpless, China Long, Palace King and Armenian cucumbers) that I did not want to plant another type. So I will plant picklers next year if all goes well. Meantime I found out I could use any of mine by just slicing them but the pros consider the resulting refridgerator pickles inferior to using whole cukes. But I will just try anyway.

The straw does sometimes sprout. Depends on which cutting you get when you buy the bales. These bales had lots of seedheads so must have been first cutting. They will definately sprout. Very easy to pull the sprouts as they just lift right up and are always in clumps, not like single blades of grass.

I'm sure you'll have great luck with them!

You had better luck with your straw sprouting than my neighbor did. It looked like she'd have to get a tractor to bale it up! It grew everywhere!

I don't have much problems with it.

I am really wanting to try my hand at my own referator pickles. A new thing for me. I am planning on using the Mrs Waggies mixes, there are a bunch of flavors for the refridgerator pickles. And it is the easy way of doing things. I have a bunch of plastic quart containers saved (with lids). The kind you get deli stuff in or takeout soup from the chinese resturant.

Maybe I'll have to try those fridge pickles too! I'm pretty sure that I'm going to have way too many for regular canning. Just picked 8 more, and waiting for Mom to call me back to let me know how many pounds we need for the recipe. I haven't made them in about 20 years, and I can't wait! Homemade bread and butter pickles are so much better than store bought. In fact, I won't even buy the store bought ones because I think they are terrible. That's the only kind I've ever canned, and I'd really like to try making dill pickles too.

Just picked some more little tomatoes and squash. Hmmm... I wonder what I'll have for dinner tonight?

I love sweet bread and butter pickles. I buy the refridgerated jars at the store. Don't like the ones that aren't refridgerated much. These are better. But I really want to try homemade.

I have a really good recipe for them that came from my sister's best friend's mother. When I get around to making them, I'll type it up for you if you want it. I know that we cut them up and soaked them overnight in a big bowl with a brine that was easy to make, and then canned them. Maybe it would work in the fridge too? I think that those are the first thing I ever canned, and I thought it was really easy. I think canning is always easier when you have two people working on it, so I always can with my Mom. We make a good team when it comes to that! For everything else, we just get in each others way!

The squash and tomatoes were delicious tonight! I'm so happy to be eating fresh veggies again! My husband calls me a seasonal vegetarian!

Thanks Natalie, but I am going to stick to the Mrs Waggies mixes as that is definately the easy way for someone like me who never tried before. Eating lots of fresh veggies in the summer from the garden sounds great to me.

I forgot to post yesterday's daylily pictures! Here they are now-

ambrosia rows



barney


cheshire cat


desire of nations


feeling frisky


fox point


harvest house


hawaiin dancer


herbgirls cherry moonshine


kenora wildfire



no blue oxfords


screaming queen


sam abel


shadow of his hand


soul on fire


westbourne oranges for christmas

garden views-

Rita, I see the grass lanes...swoon. One of the things I miss about Indiana is soft, green, walk-on-it-barefoot, REAL grass. Stuff we can grow here is an instrument of torture!!!! Well, mayyyybe not quite that bad, but not REAL GRASS to someone originally from up north.

You have a good eye for composition.

Very beautiful Rita!!!

Those tomato plants are really ugly, I'm surprised they haven't died already

Debra, there is not much grass left around here but I do like some grass.

Cindy, thanks!

Dot, I honestly don't know why my tomato plants look like tomato trees. I did give them compost and some fertilizer but still.

I was just joking Rita, they are awesome.