Super Tomatoes

Wow! My mom sent me pictures of the strawberry tomatoes that they just picked (in MN). One weighs 2 lbs 8 oz the other 2 lbs 6 oz. LOL - I have trouble with anything bigger that cherry tomatoes (darn squirrels). They can grow some tomatoes!! Some day I will crack the Florida tomato gardening code :)



My dad - where my green thumb originates :)

Orchid Love

I am not one to dote over any plant (unless it is a tomato plant) so when an aunt gave me an orchid a few years back I pretty much knew what it's fate would be. All I hear about orchids is how much work they are. Special food, special light, special amount of water. No way. If I wanted just something pretty I would rather buy a bouquet of something that would last a week (which I wouldn't really do)...with none of the doting. It had been sitting outside for all of these years looking healthy but without flowering. Then, without warning, it bloomed. I haven't done a thing to it, save for a bit of water whenever I think about it. Thought I'd share my pretty flower with you. AND it's blooms have lasted for about 2 months!! No bouquet would ever do that. So I showed it some love. I brought it inside the last two days, out of the freezing weather. But it better know the special treatment won't last!

Fall Garden Experiment

I truly have gardening in my blood. My grandpa was a tomato farmer in MN (as well as other relatives who still have nurseries up there) and my father devotes most of his free time to his extensive gardens. I think he retired just so he could spend more time in the garden.

One of my fondest memories of growing up was going to the St. Paul Farmer's Market early Saturday morning to help sell produce, eat ham and cheese bagels, and play with my cousins. I worked at a nursery and craft store throughout high school and a small nursery one summer in college (I have had an abundant amount of jobs, but that is another post altogether). With my last two babies I planted instead of nested. My children, who are ecstatic to get a shovel and plant seeds, know where veggies actually come from. They have seen it happen. So you get the picture, I love gardening.

Last winter my Dad came for a visit and dug up a garden bed and started tons of seedlings for me. Besides the sunflowers, the garden did not do well. I think the summer is just too hot for things down here. I've planted things before for the summer season but never had great results. When he came down again after Scarlett was born he dug another two beds and two sides along the house. Tons more space! So I have experimented with a fall garden. It is doing great! I have 20+ tomato plants (I really cannot help myself, it's an addiction), bell peppers, banana peppers, habenero and jalapeno peppers, string beans, radishes, carrots, cucumbers, red onions, scallions, a lettuce mix, various herbs and an eggplant that has hardly made it past a seedling. You can tell you have a gardening problem when you start planting things you don't even normally eat (radishes).

The tomatoes have really blossomed in the past few week. I think they like the cooler weather we have been having. I'm so used to the traditional northern summer garden that each thing is toss up. The true scientist (nerd) that I am, I have been keeping notebooks as to what grows well, when, where, and for how long. Maybe in a few years I'll have it down. For now, I keep vigilant watch on my little tomato babies! Soon the girls will be eating them right off the plants quicker than I can get my hands on them.

P.S. I hate squirrels. They are doing as much "gardening" in my beds and pots as I am.