big roma harvest

I had my biggest ever roma harvest today, 3 1/2 pounds! I had planned to make a roasted vegetable tomato sauce tomorrow, but with the additional tomatoes, I went ahead and used my older romas to make a basic tomato sauce and will work on the roasted sauce tomorrow. I have also harvested 3 lemon cucumbers so far, gave one to Bobbie and the other two I have kept for my mom. There is a chance I may have a pretty good harvest of them and if so, I might try to pickle a few if I can find a recipe that will work with a small amount.

I have gotten nothing done around the house despite the fact that it is way too hot to work outside. We haven't had rain in 10 days now. The grass/weeds are still green but the plants are really suffering and I think I need to up the watering on the camellias. I had some really wilty plants I watered this evening. Tomorrow will be my big watering day and I'm going to try to really soak everything. I got eaten alive by the mosquitos this evening doing the watering and finally broke down and sprayed the yard with the Bug Free Backyard stuff, but only in the shady areas. I hate doing this as I have a really good population of bees this year, which I think is helping the cukes and all the other plants. I've also seen a few ladybugs. I don't want to hurt them, but the mosquito situation just gets worse and worse. Tonight there were CLOUDS of them around me when I bent down to water some of the shrubs. I'm hoping that this evening's spraying will help with the mosquitos and not hurt the bees.

I was playing around on the internet this evening looking at ourdoor lights, as I really want to replace our light. Bellacor was having a big sale and I got a light that looked great online at about 1/3 of its retail price. I hope it is as nice in person. I'm a tad worried about trying to install it, as the current light seems to come through the vinyl on the underside of the porch roof. I'm hoping there is a box under that, so we can easily hook in the new fixture. I do think it would look better if its base was on top of, not under, the vinyl.

I hate fireworks

I have been a bit slack about keeping up with the blog lately, as not much has been going on other than the almost constant watering. I've been getting some nice tomato harvests lately, but I'm still waiting for enough ripe romas to try to make a tomato cream sauce. I don't want to sauce the big heirlooms, as they are supposed to be for fresh eating and saucing the cherries would be too much work. We had the roasted cherry tomato pasta dish again and it was very good again. We will probably have it next week as well. Last night fore dinner we ate two of the eggplants. I do want to try and make an eggplant and tomato dish that we had last year that I really liked. I found the recipe again, so maybe later this week.

Today I got a really late start on the day, but did give the yard a good watering. It was in the mid-90s today and I got hot and tired just from that little bit of outside work. I did repot the 'Blushing Bride' and 'Merritt's Surpreme' baby hydrangeas I'm growing into trade gallon pots. They can grow out in those until next spring. I am also working on getting the 'Double Pink' rooted cutting to start living outside. The last time I left it outside all day it almost died, so I'm trying a much slower approach this time. In other hydrangea news, I potted up the 3 cutting Mrs Phillips gave me from her purple hydrangea. They had been in water for 3 weeks and grew roots a ways up their stems. I actually had to cut leaves off one cutting, as the roots extended past the leaves. They will try a few hours outside tomorrow as well.


Hydrangea 'Penny Mac'

I'm tired and would like to go to bed, but there are constant fireworks. There have been fireworks for the last two nights and I'm sure it will continue for several more nights. These aren't even the pretty ones, just the ones that make a little explosion and the awful whistling ones. Times like this I wish they were illegal.

The really ugly house across the street from us had been on the market, but it never sold. Then they put up a for rent sign ($690/month- wow...) and it was rented in about a week. We saw the U-Haul for the new residents and have seen a van there, but we still haven't seen them.


Dahlia 'Lavender Perfection'

first attempt at tomato sauce

Today was once again hot and I watered twice. I also got a pretty good harvest, including a lot of the romas that were suffering from blossom end rot. I figured they would not keep too well once picked, so I would need to do something with them ASAP. I didn't have a ton, but I decided to try to make tomato sauce. I used a modification for a recipe in the book Mediteranean Harvest.



I sauteed 2 cloves of garlic in 2 T of olive oil, with about 1 t minced onion over medium heat. Then I added all the tomatoes, about 1/4 t minced red pepper, 1 sprig of thyme and some basil leaves. This was then simmered over medium-low heat for maybe 10-15 minutes (I didn't have that many tomatoes). I don't have a food mill, so I pulled out one big chunk that looked like the end of a tomato, then ran it all through the food processor. I think it tastes pretty good and is spicy! I'll have it over pasta for dinner on Monday night.

I was able to fix the part that had blown off the hose and gave the front yard a good watering today. Things in the back are looking okay. I got some new fiberglass planters at Sams Club Thursday night and have planted up the 2 'Black Pineapple' tomatoes I was never able to place out. I'm now growing FOUR plants of this tomato, so I hope it produces well and that we like it.

preparing the area for the camellia

This morning was a watering morning and it took me about an hour to water the whole yard thoroughly. Once everything was watered, I got out and got some decent pictures taken, but of course first I had to come back in and delete some photos from my full memory card.

I worked a little bit on doing away with some of the pansy pots. I transplanted one bush bean seedling into its own small pot, moved the leatherleaf sedge into its own terra cotta pot and set it by the 'Limelight' hydrangea and finally potted up the one 'Ponderosa' tomato seedling in the big green plastic pot. I hope the seedling will make it out there in full sun. That variety has not been my strongest grower from seed. I also put my two now rooted hydrangea cuttings outside in pots for the first time today. As of this afternoon, they seemed to be doing well.

During the heat of the day, we went out and did errands, then ate dinner. After dinner, I went out to start to tackle the project of getting the camellia planted in the foundation bed. I used a garden hose to lay out how I wanted to extend the bed, then used the mattock that Bobbie gave me to try to cut the path of the bed into the grass. That was actually a bit harder that it seemed it would be. After that, it was one long project to dig out all the grass in the area. I finally finished just as the sun was setting. Now, I have a nice area of bare dirt to get started tomorrow morning digging the hole for the camellia and getting it planted. Then, I will really need more mulch!

so dry already, plus planted hydrangea and viburnum

For the last two days, when I've been outside in the evening, it has been SO dry. The tomatoes have all needed to be watered and today I saw 'Teller Red' hydrangea being wilty. I have watered portions of my yard both nights. The weather report had called for rain today, but it never showed up. Currently the forcast is for rain all weekend and right now that would be very welcome. I feel like I am back in last July already, with the heat and the drought and everything needing to be watered all the time.

The baby tomato plants continue their outside time and that seems to be going well. Right now they aren't putting out much in the way of new growth, but they also aren't getting a lot of sun. This weekend I'm going to try to leave them out in the sun longer, if we have any sun. Last night, I started another cup of the 'Ananas Noir' tomato seeds as I have yet to get a sprout. I'm not sure if they were quite ready to be started outside, so I brought those trays in a few days ago. I'm either going to have very few or a bumper crop as I've started almost 20 seeds.

Last night after yoga I came home and finally planted the viburnum. Last fall we set in in the spot where the yew had died and it has lived there ever since. I could never figure out where I was going with it and my mom said that it belonged on that corner and it does look good, so I've sacrificed matching for flowers on one side. I hope it will do well. The rootball was a little on the dry side when I planted it, so I tried to really soak the rootball while watering yesterday and today. The actual digging in was really easy as the yew had been there, so I didn't dig a very big hole, in part due to the lilies and heucheras planted around it. The soil seems to be great, so I'm hoping the roots will grow well. It was very root bound as well, so I was pretty aggressive about loosening up the roots. I'll keep my fingers crossed...


This evening, with no rain, I decided to finally plant the Forever and Ever Double Pink hydrangea I had bought at Lowes. The original ideas was to plant it in the front side yard where I ended up planting another Endless Summer. I decided against that plan, as I don't know how this plant will perform and I figured ES was a sure thing. After that decision was made, I waffled for a while on where to put the plant, then finally decided I would plant it between the 'Flying Dragon' and the Rose of Sharon, next to the annual bed. 'Masja' is in pretty much the same position on the other side of the annual bed and Rose of Sharon, so I figured this would balance well and my neighbor's chestnut tree should provide enough shade. The space I planted it in isn't big, but this plant is not supposed to get that big either, so I'm hoping it will work.

Another great ranunculus shot:


'Delta Fire' pansies still blooming:

'Christmas Tree' planted

I got up a bit earlier than usual this AM with the plan that I would get the new hostas planted before work. Since they were bare root, I let them soak overnight in a bowl of water, but I wasn't sure about leaving them that way for 2 nights, so that meant that I had to do something with them today.

I went out and dug up the area where I wanted to plant 'Christmas Tree', LOTS of roots, but I did my best to dig them out. My neighbor's trees are obviously the type that send out a lot of surface roots, as I always run into a ton when I am digging back there. I got 'Christmas Tree' planted out and watered in. I also put 'Holy Mole' in a 2 gallon pot and potted it up for the time being. I will have to figure out where to put it and its friends.

Today was the tomatoes first day outside. I put them on the porch right up against the house where they would get a few hours of morning sun but hopefully be protected from any strong winds. They seem to have done pretty well. I'll put them back out there tomorrow.

The reticulated irises that I got earlier this year from a woman who comes into work have just started to bloom.

eBay hostas arrive

The two hostas I bought on ebay, 'Holy Mole' and 'Christmas Tree' arrived today. 'Christmas Tree' has big leaves and nice roots. 'Holy Mole' is just beginning to wake up but has a HUGE root system. So big, I'm trying to figure out what to do with it, as I'm not ready to plant it yet. My tentative plan is to try to plant 'Christmas Tree' tomorrow AM before work, but that depends on how early I can get up and get ready for the day.

I also potted all the 'Pink Accodion' tomato seedlings in their own pots and plan to start moving them outside tomorrow.