The tomatoes are starting to come in. This is my first big one. It's a Pineapple. It was quite tasty.
From top to bottom...Grape, two Big Rainbow's, a beefsteak, and a roma. The Big Rainbows are kind of disappointing this year. The size is easily half of what they have been in past years. They still taste great.
Here's my dog Porter. He loves to sleep in the sun.
Twinkle Hybrid from Territorial Seed Company (Or maybe Rosa Bianca from Park). I only grow eggplant once every few years since it's not something we eat a lot of. I do like the look of it though and just for that reason I plan on growing more in the future.
Here they are! The Beam's Yellow Pear from Seed Savers Exchange is the first to produce ripe tomatoes in my garden this year. This plant is the most vigorous of the 10 I am growing this year so I'm not surprised that it has the first fruit. I can't report on the taste as my wife took these to work with her lunch today. They come 65 days after setting out and 108 days after starting the seeds. I'll compare with the packages later
Another creature from my vacation. On Tuesday morning around 10am we started to notice these bugs flying around the backyard. We didn't see any on Monday. by noon there were several hundred, maybe a thousand of them flying all over the place. It took a while to catch one even though they were not fast. They very rarely landed. This one is average and is just one inch long. The bottom was the most reflective I've ever seen. Sort of like looking at a green mirror. They reminded me of June bugs. On Wednesday there were maybe half of what we saw on Tuesday. On Thursday there was maybe 50 . On Friday I saw 2. Very strange. ID?
Here is the site of my next project...a butterfly garden. I'm just finishing the wall by filling in with topsoil. I'm not going to start planting until the end of July. Have to finish a few other things before then.
Beams' Yellow Pear from Seed Savers Exchange. This is, without a doubt, the most vigorous plant of my 10 tomatoes. It's pushing 6 feet tall and has hundreds of fruit throughout the plant. For some reason I have 2 of them. One was intended for my mom but something got mixed up. There are at least a dozen fruit clusters just like this one on each plant. I don't know what I'll do with all the fruit, but that is a good problem to have!
Big Rainbow is one of my favorites. This year they seem to be a little on the small size. The one on the left is a bit bigger than a baseball. I know this plant will produce some big ones throughout the year. I seem to think the plant is just starting to take off now.
Pink Accordion is an heirloom from Territorial Seed. This plant has the least amount of fruit. I don't know if I had blossom drop or they just didn't set. It seems to be coming around just now with a few small fruits popping out. Here is the biggest one.
Grape. This plant has always been on the smaller side. It is a wide open plant and by that I mean...it's wide open with a lot of space between the branches and leaves. Some plants you have to dig deep to find the fruit, with this it's very spread out. This plant has gone on a growth spurt the last 2 weeks ans has set dozens of small fruit. I think it may be a winner...
Pineapple heirloom from Territorial Seed. This plant is tall, over 4 feet, but not a lot of fruit. The ones that are there are BIG! Look at that big ugly one on top! I just love 'em when they get all scarred and deformed! How cool is that! I think when all is said and done these two fruits will go over a pound each. At first I thought this was the same as Big Rainbow, but now I'm starting to see a difference. We'll see when it comes to taste!
This is an heirloom that i am growing for the first time. So far so good. The branch here has 5 nice sized fruit, each about the size of a baseball. there a few other single fruits scattered throughout the plant. I think it's going to set another batch of fruit now as it was covered in blossoms earlier this week. It is about 4 feet tall. The description on the packet said 'Skin is green, purple, orange and yellow. Flesh is bright green streaked in red'. Sounds cool. Hope it tastes cool...
Here are the Roma's. They are looking fine. This is probably the shortest of the 10 tomato plants I'm growing, but after the yellow pear it has the most fruit. There are maybe 5 other branches that look just like this. Roma is always a good producer in my garden. These will become sauce in a few weeks. I can't wait until I open a jar this winter. That's when I'll really enjoy them
Also, I think this fly may be part of the equation. I noticed it crawling around. When I got close to it , the thing just crawled. It didn't fly away. When looking at it I noticed the end of it (abdomen?) Is colored the same as the jumping worms. I think it was just like a fly that has just emerged and it's wings weren't ready to fly.
