Quilts, Tomatoes, Pepper buds!

Ready for some garden pictures? Here's my banana pepper plant, with lots of buds all tucked in the center there. I bet I'll have blooms soon!

Again with the cherry tomato plant, from the top this time, with four easy to spot little green tomatoes, and a few more hiding in the leaves if you really hunt for them.

And last, the current quilt I'm working on. I can't share the whole thing with you, because it's a yet-unpublished pattern from Quiltmaker magazine that the Scrap Squad is doing. But here's a photoshopped picture that gives you a teaser of the colors of batiks that I'm using:

More Spring Planting

Went and spent some hard-earned cash at Home Depot last night on the way home from work. Then had to haul the two big bags of dirt, a new plant pot, one more tomato cage, some seeds, and three more plants around to the back patio. Here's what I ended up with. First, that banana pepper plant I said I still wanted:

I was also tempted to try yellow pear tomatoes this year. I think it was Tazzie that mentioned them in response to my problem with birds—because these tomatoes don't get red, birds're less attracted to them. They're about the size of cherry tomatoes, but longer, with an added pear shaped blob. Supposed to taste great too!

I also got some Vidalia onions, a whole little round blob of them. I think you call them starters? Then on my way to the front of the store, I passed a rack with more plants and I couldn't resist some early cauliflowers. These are supposed to be done in 50 days, so if that's true, I'll get a harvest at the beginning of June, before it gets too hot for them. I put those in the wading pool, onions toward the back:

I had so many onions that I put a few in some of the tomato containers, around the edges. It seems like my tomatoes always grow pretty tall, and the roots never extend out to the top edge of the containers, (I plant them deep) so maybe the pairing will work.

So here's the state of my containers now, and I think this'll do me for the summer. I'm not at all sure about the cowpeas in the windowbox—the snow peas do wonderfully there, so maybe these will too? And the cantaloupe in containers is new for me. I may need to get tomato cages for them, and suspend the cantaloupes from the wire with little net bags? I'll have to do some research. All suggestions welcome! How does YOUR garden grow?

It's Garden Time!

It's April, so that means all my quilting friends are going to have to put up with garden updates again. :) I enjoy my little foray into container gardening, and it's really no trouble to do, once it's set up. And setting it up is NOT that difficult, nor does it take much space, money or time.

First, here's the wading pool. I started using it three years ago, as a cheap alternative to a raised bed. This spring, I'm using it to plant onions, (little green onions, around the edge) and I'm going to try cantaloupe in the middle. I need to add some fertilizer and give it a good stir before I plant the seeds tomorrow.

I think this will be the last year for the wading pool. These pools are really cheap, but not meant to last several summers. The plastic around the edge that's been exposed to the sun is disintegrating. Since I've enjoyed the fruits and veggies of my labors, I think next year, the pool will come out, and I'll upgrade to a raised wooden bed. Maybe even put in some strawberries and asparagus, which take more than a year to grow, and keep coming back.

Walmart had four varities of tomatoes this year that looked good. I prefer indeterminate plants that yeild all summer instead of the determinate ones that grow tomatoes that ripen all at once. Here's the four I have so far:

*drumroll* In the beige container, the Better Boy. I've grown these before, and they did well.

This next one's a new variety (cultivar, is that the right word?) for me, it's called 'Bonnie Original' and I'll have to see how it tastes.

Red Beefsteak is also a new one for me, and I'll admit I bought it just because of the name. Doesn't 'beefsteak' sound like it'll be a huge, ripe juicy tomato? The name made me salivate, so I bought the plant, lol.

And finally, a Husky Red Cherry tomato bush. This was the first variety of tomato I tried to plant in containers, and they're great. I can eat these all by themselves or in a salad, and the plant's pretty prolific too.

Then I'm trying one more new thing this year, yellow bell peppers. Last year I had two banana pepper plants and there were just too many banana peppers for one person to eat. I shared handfuls with the neighbors, and pickled some, too. I didn't see any banana pepper plants out at the store yet, but I did see these, and thought, hmm. Stuffed bell peppers, yum!

I still plan on getting a banana pepper plant when they're available. cuz I love those things. And possibly another tomato plant, maybe a grape tomato again? I have plenty of time to decide. Any suggestions for other crops I could attempt in containers?

July Garden Sow and Tell

Been picking a lot, but not posting much! Here's the state of the stuff on my kitchen counter a couple of days ago. I took about 6 of the bigger ones to Mom because they really enjoyed the ones I took over on Father's Day.


I have banana peppers and MORE banana peppers.


I guess two pepper plants are too much for me! I've bought some vinegar, kosher salt, and a little jar of something called 'Pickle Crisp' and I plan to pick some of these on July 4th and attempt a refrigerator pickle, with banana pepper rings plus some rings of the Vidalia onions I bought. I plan on making one jar with some red onion rings or wedges, just to see what happens. Think the red onions will turn the yellow pepper rings orange?

Yet another Cat and Garden Update

First, a request from Mom. She liked the picture of Libby from my last post, but demands that Toby get equal time. So here's my other rescued Siamese. He wanted to look out the window undisturbed and chatter at the birds, especially a dove that lives in the ash tree. But I wanted a picture and kept tapping him on his furry little butt, so he'd look at ME instead of the bird. He finally turned around, looked exasperated, and gave me a couple of long meows. So this is him explaining, "The white bird is out there, I'd much rather watch it, if you'd quit thumping my rear end, I could concentrate. Understood?"


So I'll leave the cat alone, and start with the garden headline news ... my first tomato! It's on the Better Boy plant, the one that had blooms when I bought it. This plant has three, but the other two are even smaller-than-green-pea size.


The wading pool squash are going great so far. I'm not going to let myself get too excited, though, because they were going pretty good last year too, till the rabbit got them. Any of you that regularly garden know of a good companion plant that I could grow with the squash? I've heard corn, but... not in a wading pool, of course.


And here's my windowbox snowpeas. I'll have to put them near the cage pretty soon, so they can climb, but the cage is round front by my peony bush. When they start getting the huge golf-ball size buds, the peonies are usually too heavy for the stem and need some support until the blooming is over.


And, I'll close with another group shot. ;) The banana pepper plants aren't growing near as fast as the tomatoes, anyone know why? Any advice?

Garden Update for Mid April

*grins*
Get used to it, I like to keep a photo-record of my plants. ;)

Here's another version of the group shot I took 9 days earlier - scroll down to see the previous group shot - I like seeing how they've grown, and it's fun to be able to look back on last year and see which ones grew best, and produced earliest. Several of the tomato plants now have buds and blooms, the Better Boy has three teeeeeny little tomatoes, not even the size of an English pea yet.


My squash in the kiddy pool is doing great - I planted 5 seeds per hill, as the directions on the back of the packet showed, but not all of them are up. I wonder if storing these seeds in the freezer (they're the ones that didn't get used last year) impacted their hmm... sprout-ability? Viability, that's the word I was looking for. Most, but not all of the snow peas sprouted, and they were stored in the freezer too.


And finally, a picture of Libby, who hates to go outside, but loves to sit in the window and watch me when I'm outside.

Garden Beginnings for April

Ready to meet my new plant family? This is Easter weekend, so that means planting time at my house. I spent three hours this morning, shifting dirt from container to container, repotting, and planting.

The squash in a kiddie wading pool first - last year this didn't work. Not even ONE squash. But I kept the extra seeds in the freezer and I'm trying again. This time, better dirt instead of the topsoil I used before. I also poked some bigger holes in the bottom for drainage. I have five hills of five seeds planted. Last year, I thought I was being smart and tried to stagger the planting times, thinking I'd have squash early, squash late, and even end-of-summer squash. Instead, I think I might have not had enough blooming at one time to fertilize each other. I also had rabbit problems - this year, once they sprout, I'm doing the stinky kitty litter trick around the outside of the pool earlier -- after I did that last summer, I didn't see hide nor 'hare' of the rabbit for the rest of the season. :)


I enjoyed the produce from my sweet banana pepper plant so much last summer, I decided I'd have two this year. I'm planting them in better soil this year too, so I hope I don't get massively over peppered! Meet Banana One and Twin.



And about the CD's -- I'm always tempted to lie and say they're providing some esoteric nutrient to the soil, or they're providing reflected sunlight to the understory of the plants ... nope, they're just there for bird scare. When my tomatoes get 'caged' I use scissors to cut a slice thru the CD and put them on the cages, where the slightest breeze spins them back and forth and sets them flashing.

I haven't yet had a surplus of tomatoes in my little garden, so this year I bought still another container, plus more dirt, and I'm putting out a bunch. First, a Better Boy. Lookie, three little yellow tomato blooms! I had one of these last year, and it did really well:


Then I'm trying grape tomatoes for the first time. I often buy these at the supermarket, and spend $2.50 or so for a little plastic box of them. I'll try to keep some account of how many the plant produces, and see if I save anything.


Next, a Big Boy. I'm hoping this will produce some larger tomatoes I can slice and use on sandwiches. I used one of my big new plastic terracotta containers for this - it's a normal sized tomato plant, not one of the little container 'bushes,' so I'm slightly worried that it may be too much for a container. We'll see.


Here's another I've had in the past, a Husky Cherry Red. This was one of the varities that got me started in container gardening - it was so much fun going out every evening and picking a couple of cherry tomatoes for my salad. Juicy, round, and sweet, they were great. And they weren't prone to splitting either.


I have had this one too, and couldn't resist another. I'm not sure if this Early Girl will have the first ones ripe this summer since the Better Boy already has blooms, I'll have to wait and see.


Now, a group shot of my container garden - and if you look off to the left corner you can see my two window boxes with snowpeas. I planted the seeds for that last week. When I was planting everything else this morning, I was delighted to see that I now have tiny little green leaves poking out of the dirt. I didn't have any mulch on them though, so I re-covered the little shoots with some loose mulch when I was adding mulch to the tops of the tomato containers.

Quilting and Tomatoes

Bet you'd thought I'd forgotten my blog, didn't you? But I've been quilting and tending my tomatoes and working - I'm just more hooked on the facebook games, Farmtown and Vampire Wars, than blogging... lol.

I'm taking another quilting class Saturday, this one is from Pat Speth, and is all about using 5 inch squares. We have lots of homework to do before the class, getting all of our nickel squares cut!

But I'm not choosing one of her layouts... typical troublemaker that I am, I'll be using one of these two... either dark IN or dark OUT. Which do you like better?



I know they're not my 'typical' colors or quilts you'll see on my blog, but I really needed to get all these older calicoes out of my stash. I'm not buying a thing for this class - by using the thin strips of calico for a scrappy sashing, and using scrappy variety in the blocks, I've got more than enough calico and small print fabric to complete this. :) I'm glad to finally be using it up - it's funny how my fabric tastes have changed, I'm much more into batiks and tone-on-tone prints now than sweet little calicoes and tiny florals.

And finally, here's an October 22 tomato update for you:


We haven't had a really hard freeze yet here in Memphis, so yes, things are still this green. The Early Girl bush is producing nicely, and as you can see, I'm still rolling in cherry tomatoes, too.

Peppers, Tomatoes, and Repairs

I made a great chicken fettucini alfredo last night, and along with the chicken and some mushrooms, saute'd my first banana pepper. Stirred the whole thing together... mmm. I'd cut into the pepper and cleaned out the seeds before I remembered that I hadn't taken a picture of it - so here it is, with a couple of cherry tomatoes slid in there for eyes. That's my harvest for the last couple of days. Anyone know how long an un-cut-into unrefrigerated pepper will keep? Will it get hotter or milder as it ages, or will it stay the same?


Here's my banana pepper plant now. It doesn't look as green and nice, the leaves have spots, and something is eating them... but it's making great tasting peppers. Can you find the little peppers about to bud out? The inch long one you see had been pea sized for a while - then when I cut the two ripe ones off, within a day, bam, it grew an inch.


And I'm finally getting more new tomatoes. I suspect it was just too hot for a while, then we had some rain and cooler weather, now I've got little tomatoes again. The CD's you see there are for bird-scare. The wind catches them and blows them back and forth, the sun glints and flashes off them as they move. Between that and picking the tomatoes before they get too red and enticing, I haven't had many bird problems this year.


I'm going to wait until the end of August, then start another crop of snow peas. The package says they'll grow well in cooler weather, even through frost.

And in other news, I'm finally getting some repairs done to my house, painting and replacing of masonite board and trim. This board over the carport had some warping and birds had gotten in and made nests. Now it's all clean and neat again. They've been doing some sanding too. I had a trumpet flower vine growing up the post, and it'd spread those little root-things on the wood. SO nice to have it gone.


Here's the back door, out back by my container garden. They've replaced some door trim that had water damage and a whole sheet of masonite.


There's supposed to be thunderstorms tomorrow, hope it doesn't slow the repair work down. The paint will be the exact same shade it is now, Navajo white, with forest green shutters.

Rainbows and Tomatoes

We had quite a storm come thru Memphis this past weekend. I was without power for two days, and there are some 30,000 folks in the city who still don't have any. I took these photos immediately after the storm:


It was just before the sun went down, and there were still some pretty dark clouds in the sky. It was a lot prettier in person, really. ;)


And here's what I picked tonight from my little container garden:


I was going to save the snow peas to have in my salad, but *blushes* I crunched them raw while I was uploading the photos. Five to seven snowpeas each night seems to be my average, so it takes 3 to 4 days of resisting the temptation to gobble them up fresh in order to be able to save enough to cook. I just ate that reddest cherry tomato too... lol The other red one on the right, from the early girl plant, WILL make it to the salad tonight. :) The two bigger ones in the back, still orange, are from the better boy plant.

Garden Update for Beginning of June

I'm baaaack. ;) and wow, am I glad to have internet at home again. On the right in the picture below, my new modem. Now to catch you up with my garden! This is my first little crop. One tomato (between ping pong ball and tennis ball size) and eleven snow peas, on top of that snack sized baggie there. I'm really trying to save them till I have enough to stir fry, but it's hard! I like them raw too.


Here's the tomatoes still on the vine, another Early Girl just starting to get orange. The Better Boy tomatoes are in the foreground, but I think they have some growing to do still.


And here's the status of the crookneck squash. The kitty litter trick has worked, and no more gobbled blooms.


Last, my snow peas. I almost wish I'd planted more of these, instead of just 20 plants, they're really delectable. I've eaten only four of them, so far. But the package directions say they don't do too well in the heat of the summer. Instead, I'll wait till August and put in a new crop for fall.



Anyone out there know when the squash blooms open? I'm worried that with fewer bees, I'm going to have more of a crop if I go pollinate with a q-tip. But every time I've been out there, the blooms are twisted shut. Healthy looking, but closed.

Squash, Tomatoes, and Sugar Queen

It's been raining a LOT here in Memphis, over this Memorial Day weekend - and when it's not pouring, it's looking like it's about to. My veggies are loving it though! The squash plants don't have many leaves, but there's whole thickets of buds about to emerge. I can't wait till they bloom.


And here's my cherry tomato bush, clusters of little tomatoes all beaded with drips from the rain:


And since indoors is a good place to be when it's pouring, I'm glad I've got some good books to read. Here's Toby snuggling with one of the better ones I've read this week, Sarah Addison Allen's second book, Sugar Queen. Think he's trying to tell me he's ready for a little sugar?


Sugar Queen has some original ideas, one of which I can't tell you without giving a book spoiler. My favorite device is that one of the main characters has a book problem. Whenever she needs a book, the perfect one appears. Books follow her. Even when she doesn't want them to. Some short quotes:

For a while ... she thought her great-grandparents were surprising her with books. She'd find them on her bed, in her closet, in her favorite hideouts.... Books on games or novels of adventure when she was bored. Books about growing up as she got older. But when her great-grandparents confronted her about all the books ... she realized they weren't the ones doing it.
She accepted it from then on. Books liked her. Books wanted to look after her.

As the novel starts, Chloe had broken up with her boyfriend, Jake. Now she's being stalked by a couple of self help books on relationships, that she does NOT want to read:

She stomped to the bathroom to take a shower. Books never appeared in the bathroom. Like cats, they hated water. She stood under the spray until the water turned cold. Just when she thought she had washed all thoughts of Jake out of her mind, at least enough to sleep, she opened the bathroom door and found the books, stacked neatly one on top of the other on the floor in front of her.

"If I see you again tonight, I'm putting you both in the toilet," she said as she stepped over them and went to the bed to set her alarm.

When she turned around again, they were gone.

I truly enjoyed this one, as well as the first novel from Sarah Addison Allen, Garden Spells. If you read either one of her books on my recommendation, or if you've already read them,let me know!