Is It Time to Pull Out the Tomato Plants?

The end of August should be prime tomato growing season. This is usually the time of year when the big yellow bowl on my kitchen island overflows with all types of juicy red tomatoes. Usually we are so sick of tomatoes by this time of year that we're blanching, freezing, and processing as many as we can to save for a future date.

But this year was different. The derecho that swept through at the end of June toppled nearly all my tomato plants. Many were knocked flat, stakes and supports uprooted, vines tumbling everywhere. I admit too that with the heat and the drought I sort of gave up on them. I was diligent about taking care of the plants in May.  I was out there weekly pinching off side shoots, tying the branches up with soft cloth, doing all the things you're supposed to do.  But then the derecho knocked them all down and I couldn't get them upright again, and we sort of gave up on them, letting the plants drape this way and that.

Many of the tomatoes were lost but many just didn't come to peak taste, flavor or color this year, either. The cherry tomatoes were all right and at the start of the season we got some nice Beefstake tomatoes. Early Girl and Supersonic were hits. Mortgage Lifter is just too 'meaty' for my family's tastes.  The special heirloom variety seeds I obtained in the Master Gardener class this spring didn't live, so I never did get to taste green striped tomatoes...

We still have some smaller tomatoes coming in, but mostly it's a big tangle of ugly dead vines.  I'm wondering if I shouldn't just pull out the tomato plants or leave them for now?  If I pull them out I can clean up that area of the garden and free up space for the broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedings growing in trays on my front porch right now. On the other hand, I might miss out on more tomatoes!

Decisions, decisions...

The Gardenia Lives!

Gardenia in my garden blooming today.

I have never had great luck growing gardenias, but this one particular plant has thrived for two years. It seems to like the eastern-facing location next to the back deck. I think it has several factors that help nurture it along. First, we mulched the area heavily, which retains moisture. Moisture also tends to drop from the stone foundation of the deck.  The eastern-facing light provides brightness without the harsh, hot summer sun of the south that can bake the plants to death.  This weekend's nearly four inches of rainfall also encouraged another flowering, and so I was able to take a few photos of the blossoms.

Here are some resources to learn more about growing gardenias:

• Gardenia Plant Care
• Virginia Cooperative Extension information on growing gardenias indoors

Fall Vegetable Gardening Plans

We planted seeds for the fall vegetables this past weekend, as well as seed potatoes for a second harvest.  In went another crop of green beans, beets, carrots, and turnips.  We planted seeds for the fall squashes too, hoping that at this late date, the voracious beetles that devour the spring zucchini and squash are finished their cycle and will leave them alone.  I love spaghetti squash, acorn and butternut squash, and we planted plenty. Maybe a few will live - who knows?

Broccoli seedlings emerging.  

On the front porch I have a tray of seeds starting outdoors. Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seeds have all emerged.  They seem to be stretching up towards the light, but I don't want to move the tray out into the full sunshine. I'm afraid that if I do that, I'm going to be spending all my time running outside to water them in the heat of the summer. Fortunately, it has been cooler than usual, and they seem to appreciate it.

Green beans in the garden

Cherry tomatoes

But don't forget the rest of the vegetable garden. The sweet potatoes, after straggling through the heat and drought, have finally been surging with growth and I am hopeful that we will at least get some sweet potatoes from the harvest in September or October.  The first crop of green beans has begun producing beans, but not enough yet to can.  The tomatoes have slowed down considerably. The derecho that ripped through here in June knocked them over and we never really were able to get the stakes upright and firmly into the ground again, so my tomato garden is a kind of mess right now of tangled plants, smelly rotted tomatoes hidden underneath the plants and a few lovely ones like the pictures here waiting for a nice sandwich or salad.

One of the last beefsteak tomatoes...maybe for lunch tomorrow....

Peppers, Peppers Everywhere

Orange pepper...reflected on my kitchen counter

It's that time of year when there seems to be peppers, peppers everywhere....now, I'm not complaining. I did plant a lot of them. But it's amazing how selective amnesia makes me forget that when peppers ripen, they all come in at once. We must pick a huge bowl full of them every day.  But what to do with them?

I've written about canning them...and making the delicious recipe from the book "Preserving the Harvest" for pickled peppers. It's a great recipe, but it is time consuming.  Any canning recipe can be time consuming.  First, the peppers must be washed, cored, washed again and sliced into strips. Then there is the preparation of the canning solution, boiling the water, cleaning the jars and so forth.  It is an all-afternoon task I typically reserve for the weekends.

Green peppers in my kitchen

One quick way I have found to save peppers is to blanch and freeze them.  I purchased square freezer containers in bulk and I blanch the peppers for as long as the cookbook says, then pack them tightly into the freezer containers.  I make sure to label them with the date and year so I know to use the older ones first.  When defrosted, they are great for pepper steak or stir fry recipes.

I don't do anything special to grow my peppers.  Good vegetables always begin with good soil. I start the seeds indoors in the spring, purchasing any good-quality green bell pepper seeds.  Then after the last danger of frost is past, I transplant the peppers into the vegetable garden area.  We did use the soaker hoses this year, which I think helped them young plants survive the early heat and drought.  The plants themselves remain small but are, as you can see, producing abundant peppers.

We're enjoying the fresh peppers in dishes such as stuffed peppers, sausage and peppers, and home-made stir fry with chicken.  But there are a lot of peppers....peppers, peppers everywhere!

Green Bell Peppers

Remember Back to School Shopping?

This weekend, I was in the local big box store, and sure enough the back to school supplies were out. Aisle after aisle of neon colored notebooks, every conceivable pen and pencil you could want and many you probably wouldn't want.  Now seeing back to school supplies out in the store at this time of year is not surprising; it is mid-August, and the schools here in Virginia are already back in session, or will be in a week or two. What always surprises me is how neat and orderly back to school shopping has become. It's changed to take out some of the surprise and excitement.  Is it a change for the better? I think that if I were a mom, I would think so.  But I can't help remembering back to school shopping from many decades ago...

You wouldn't know what supplies the teacher required until the first day of school. I remember how nervous I would be that first morning back, clutching my book bag and my little purple Snow White pencil case.  I'd write down in my memo pad every item the teacher wanted. Some teachers wanted you to have the black and white marble covered notebooks. Others insisted on only number 2 pencils and please have a pencil sharpener. And the list seemed to go on and on.

As soon as the last bell of the day rang, I'd race home and ask my mother for money. My sister and I would walk up to Grand Value, the local everything/variety store, and there we would fill our baskets with school supplies from our neat little lists.  The school supply aisle smelled crisp and clean. Fresh construction paper, loose leaf, pens, crayons...the air seemed filled with the promise of exciting things to come and a fresh start.

I'd always stand and stare sadly at the packets of crayons. Oh, how I wanted the big box. You know the one. The one with 64 crayons and the pencil sharpener in the back.  But we could only afford the 8 pack of crayons, or perhaps if I had any money leftover, maybe the 16 pack. One year I got the 24 pack and felt rich with all the shades of blue and turquoise green.  They were my favorite crayons.

The store would be packed, and we'd stand on line for 20 minutes or more, then troop home with our new school supplies. Textbooks would be covered with brown paper bags from the grocery store, cut open and neatly folded with precise corners over the hard cover books.

Call me a nerd, but I was always excited by the start of the school year.  I'd flip through my textbooks and look at the pictures. I'd dread the scary formulas in the mathematics book and read a few stories in the history book.

This week, when I walked into the store, there were racks of neatly photocopied lists of school supplies handily placed in racks right near the back-to-school-aisle. "Miss Jones' supply list for the fourth grade at ABC Elementary" and so forth.  You picked up the photocopied list and simply checked off the items as you walked the aisles.  Why, they even printed the list in the local newspaper.  You could shop at the big box store or head over to the dollar store with your newspaper-printed list if you preferred. No mystery, no surprises.

It's a much more efficient system, I am sure, and it gives harried parents time to prepare and a bit of a breather. Still, I remember the ritual of shopping for school supplies vividly...no matter what the grade, no matter what the year, the ritual was always the same, and it held something of the magic of the new year in it.

Today's picture is Razzleberry cat.  He decided to help me in the garden and posed under a dogwood tree for me to take his picture.  I thought it was a nicer picture than trying to take a photo of loose leaf or something.  Enjoy!

Yes, It's Really Summer

Butterflies on zinnias

Boy that was odd! I apologize for the older posts suddenly showing up. I've been going through some older posts and removing broken links and basically just tweaking some stuff.   It must have been bizarre to see a Christmas post show up!  Anyway....we should be back to normal soon....or at least as normal as things get around here.

Summertime in Pictures

Not much to write about since the heat this summer has kept us indoors. Last weekend, we did use the cool morning temperatures to our advantage. While I weeded, hubby mowed the lawns.  I had some unexpected company in the garden while I weeded; Raz the cat! Yes, my beautiful rescued orange tabby is now healthy and strong. He jaunts into the garden and loves to lay under the hummingbird feeder, hoping for a glimpse of a bird, beetles or butterfly.  He stays by my side while I garden and talks incessantly. I wonder if he's criticizing the weeds or reassuring me?

I managed to preserve 10 pints of white potatoes last weekend in my first experiment with the pressure canner. I'm nervous about the pressure canner. I remember horror stories of my grandmother opening the lid of the pressure cooker too soon and shooting peas (according to my dad) all over the kitchen ceiling.  My dad used to tell the tale with great exaggeration, so who knows if it's true?  He claimed he couldn't get the ceiling clean and had to repaint it thanks to the green goo that ended up shooting all over the place from the pressure cooker.  It's a funny story whether it is true or not.

This morning, I took my camera outside to take pictures of the garden, but the flowers are still shy...they really slowed down their blooms considerably during the drought.  I did, however, find solace in some unexpected company. (All pictures below were taken by me today...)  Enjoy this summer morning in pictures.

Surprised deer

Acorn developing

Butterfly...

Dawn sunlight through the woods

Turtles Moving Into the Compost Pile

A few weeks ago, I went to take the compost bucket from the kitchen to the compost pile, only to discover a beautiful painted box turtle happily munching away at some lettuce that had bolted and been tossed into the pile.  It suddenly struck me what a wonderful 'habitat' compost piles are for turtles. Not only is there a lot of soft soil to burrow into, but it's full of juicy vegetable scraps and attracts insects...it's like fine dining for turtles!

Yesterday, we used the pressure canner for the first time and canned 10 pints of potatoes.  Now that's a lot of potatoes to peel, so as you can imagine, the compost bucket became full rather quickly. I carried it out to the pile and surprised not one but two turtles near the edge of the pile.  I ran into the house to get my husband, and we watched the turtles for a while, but I can never get back in time with my camera to get a picture of these guys. It's a common misconception that turtles are slow, but when they're startled, they move quickly, and the forest floor with its golden pine needles and piles of leaves hides them well.  Once we return with the camera, they're gone.

I like to think that perhaps my compost pile is not only recycling the kitchen scraps but providing a nice resting and feeding place for turtles, too.  We made a mental note to be careful there when digging out the compost.  I wonder if there will be turtle eggs there?  Perhaps my two visitors are setting up housekeeping!

Here are some links to turtle information - and the sites have pictures that look exactly like the turtles we saw:

• Eastern Box Turtle - Northern Virginia Ecology Site (we're in southern VA but the turtle looks the same to me)
• Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries - Eastern Box Turtle

Yukon Gold potatoes from our garden, stored in the basement (Picture by Jeanne Grunert)

Crunchy Grass and Drought

We're officially in the drought-time now at Seven Oaks. The local town alert system rang in automatically yesterday to request that town residents limit watering. That doesn't affect those of us who live outside of town, but it's a sobering reminder nonetheless to conserve water.

In our Master Gardener class, we had one presenter who demonstrated the importance of water conservation. That presentation really made an impact on me.  I know that I am more careful now about taps that drip, and about using water from Shadow's bowl that I'd normally just toss down the drain to water my houseplants. It's the little things like that which I believe do add up.

Right now, we received about an inch of water this week from a few thunderstorms, which was very welcome news. The grass was crunchy underfoot - it was so dry you'd walk across and just hear crunch, crunch, crunch.  The flowers had all slowed their blooming significantly, too.  With the little bit of rain, the grass has perked up just a bit and some of the flowers seem a bit better, but the garden is nowhere near its peak as it was during the years when we had plenty of rain.

The vegetable garden is doing quite well, and we have more tomatoes than we know what to do with.  The pepper plants appeared stunted and small, but upon investigation we found huge bell peppers lurking under the leaves, so I think I will be doing a lot of canning this weekend! Not only the peppers, but the wonderful harvest of Yukon Gold potatoes needs some canning since our basement isn't cool enough to keep them forever.

Last night's dinner was almost entirely 'from the garden' and featured fresh tomatoes and basil salad, and sausage, peppers and onions.  At this time of year, such suppers are so welcome...yet I wonder how much longer the garden will continue to produce with the drought going on.  I'll continue harvesting and hope for the best.

How is the drought in your area of the United States? I know that some areas have been hit very hard.  Good luck and may your crops thrive...