abhege said:Toni, sounds like you have a lot going! Looks like you're in my zone? Or am I 8B? I can never keep that straight.

We usually only take pictures of the neat and tidy stuff, but just to make you feel better, here's a picture of some of my flower rows. Can't even see the walking path! I can barely find the perennials. And lots of weeds in the corn, beans and lettuce!

And I didn't break a leg!

Rita, my peas aren't blooming yet either. Hopefully it's just that the ground was slower to warm up this year.

A cool spring should have been good for peas.

abhege said:planted 40 Red Gold sweet potatoes... 20 purples I planted yesterday... Moth beans and Black Turtle beans, ...carrots and beets. ... tomato row is the neat one. Right next to it is the broccoli. ... onions

I have GOT to learn to eat breakfast before I read these threads!

HUNGRY now....

Toni said:tomatoes ( Kelloggs Breakfast, Oregon Spring, Italian Roma), Blue lake green beans, Purple green beans Butter Head lettuce, Straight Eight cukes, Lebanon cukes, ... sugar snap peas .. asparagus. ... potatoes, Blue, red, yukon gold, and russets. ... onions ... strawberries have green berries on them ... raspberries, and black caps are loaded this year. ... Asian Pears beginning to mature on the tree. The blueberries are looking wonderful...Huckleberry bush... Plumcots (or Pluots) ...artichoke ... peppers ... Anehiem.........can’t wait to start harvesting

AAAAAUUUGGGHHHH!
I have to put the computer down now and EAT!!!

Just so you all don't get too confused, there is a world of difference between 8a Oregon and 8a Georgia. In Georgia English peas have been harvested and gone, ditto with onions. Potatoes, snap beans, corn coming on line. Tomatoes about two weeks away for early varieties. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi in harvest mode as are beets and carrots. Oregon is much cooler so summercrops will be delayed more.

Farmerdill, so jealous! What a wonderful looking harvest! I got all my cauliflower started too late. I doubt they will form heads but I 'll try again in the fall. I didn't have any luck with kohlrabi either but I'll try again. I did get some nice broccoli though, even though I thought it had all frozen out.

I love seeing your garden!!!!!

Yeah, those zones are based on the COLDEST a place gets.
A friend of mine moved from Seattle to the Florida panhandle.
He clued me in on that.

Ha, I bought another tomato plant. Like I really needed another tomato plant. I went to the supermarket and out in front they had plants and a big display of tomato plants but they were all the same kind. One called Black Pearl. Never heard of that one but I just had to buy it. It is a dark cherry type tomato.

Well I'm glad you tried it, let me know how it tastes!

Meanwhile, here in the land of direct sowing (and LATE direct sowing at that!:

I think you can read the radish tags if you enlarge.

http://www.burpee.com/vegetabl...

Black Pearl is from Burpee

But are they TASTY??

Well, according to Burpee, very tasty.

I also have Black Cherry so now I will be able to compair these two similar varieties. I love to go out and just stand in the garden and eat the cherry tomato types right off the plant. I do pick for bringing inside but always manage to eat a bunch when picking.

I have a fair amount of cherry type tomato plants this year, more than I usually do. I have Sweet Million, Sunsugar. Zebra Cherry, Black Cherry and Black Pearl. Probably some others that I am forgetting about right now.

I planted that Black Peal already.

Farmerdill, This is why here, we rely on Sunset Western Garden zones. They have extended they're zones throughout the US. http://www.sunset.com/garden/c... . High time in my opinion!

I think I will be giving away a lot of tomatoes to places that feed the homeless. I am growing 5 different types of tomatoes. The reason I am growing so many is that last year, only the roma tomatoes tasted good of the two kinds I planted. I don't remember what the other plant was supposed to be, but after having so many last year, Roma tomatoes are now my least favorite tomato.

I wanted to start my seeds early this year and the first paste tomato seeds I could get around here were, you guessed it, Roma tomatoes. I planted a bunch of Roma tomatoes and Beefmaster tomatoes. I didn't expect all the seeds to germinate, so I planted extra seeds. All the Roma tomatoes germinated and I ran out of containers for the Beefmaster. I did keep many of the Beefmaster, but after a while, I forgot which containers were which. Because I was moving them in and out so the frost wouldn't kill them off. So much for my organization. I bought two different types of sandwich tomato plants and planted a bunch of cherry tomato seeds so I could have tomatoes growing up one of my trellises with nasturtiums.

I would have loved to have some cherry tomatoes last year, but didn't have any. So what did I do this year? You guessed it, I planted a bunch of cherry tomatoes to make up for not having any last year. They didn't germinate in the trays, so I planted a bunch in the ground. I didn't see any come up, so I naturally planted more. Yesterday, while I was weeding near what I thought were just nasturtiums, I saw a bunch of little tomato bushes. Whoa! I now have a lot of cherry tomato plants and need to thin some out. The additional seeds I sowed haven't presented themselves yet, but I'm sure I will see them. Probably tomorrow as I am thinning out the cherry tomatoes. I would have thinned them out yesterday or today but I have had a headache since yesterday that won't quit. Do I want to get rid of all those cherry tomato plants. No way. I'll find some containers to put them in so I can give those extra plants away when my headache goes away. I won't be the only one in the neighborhood growing a lot of tomatoes. I gave away at least 15 plants to neighbors within three blocks of my house.

But at least I won't have to worry about being overloaded with Roma tomatoes. I may not eat very many since I will have 4 other types of tomatoes to gorge on. A lot of vitamin C for me. I think I will need to get a blender and learn to make my own V8 juice. Of all the vegetables I could grow, at least tomatoes are very easy to get rid of. I haven't met many people that did not like home grown tomatoes. I will be sitting out in the garden day and night with a glass of lemonade, a pepper grinder, and a jar of garlic, picking tomatoes and eating them off the vines.

I will plan better for next year and won't be growing any Roma tomatoes at all.

Newyorkrita said:I also have Black Cherry so now I will be able to compair these two similar varieties. I love to go out and just stand in the garden and eat the cherry tomato types right off the plant.

You'll have to let me know.
And I eat ALL of mine right out there!
But I don't grow as much as you do - I have little land AND a favorite CSA.

I looked at the Sunset Zones and for Anchorage would add one more. I live in a micro-climate in Anchorage according to the local botanical garden map. We are to the west all but on the coast of the inlet. I grow zone 4 plants easily, every so often a 5 but rarely. We are usually at least 10 degrees warmer than the colder areas but have a pretty constant west south wind in the afternoons off the water than can chill things down. I can grow cold weather crops like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, by planting seeds directly in the ground by the latter part of May but I also plant indoors from April 15 to May 15 to get some double crops over summer. Am going to try planting garlic and onions this fall. I know the garlic will grow as the Anchorage Botanical Garden has some growing in a front bed and they are colder than I am (although the bed gets north sun not blocked by trees). Not sure about the onions but I found a couple of volunteers in my raised beds this spring (either that or chives.)

Around here the local food bank will not accept anything but canned food from private individuals like me. I grow so many veggies in the summer and always have extra.

I just hate the way Americans waste food! I was in a Boston Market once when the power went out. I had been waiting for an appointment nearby and so kept waiting there. After awhile I asked if they'd be donating the food anywhere. Manager told me too much risk of lawsuit..... And I got the same answer from a manager of a small supermarket on a day they had to close for flooding. There HAS to be a way!!!!

Robert Heinlein said he had an idea for a short story, but never wrote it:

"The Day They Shot the Lawyers"

Maybe he was afraid of being sued.