Gooseberries

I just like the pictures...I think the variety is Pixwell.

Tomato progress

I haven't posted much about my tomatoes this year. They are doing great this year. We've had a ton of rain and that may have helped some. This year I planted several new and a few trusted varieties.

Here's what I went with this year:
Pineapple - had great success with them last year. Great flavor and BIG. Territorial Seed Co.
Beam's Yellow Pear - For my wife cause she loves them - Seed Savers Exchange
Brandywine (Sudduths's) - I haven't grown Brandywine's for a few years. I can't remember why cause they are great - SSE
Hillbilly Potato Loaf - New for me - Big - yellow red - right up my alley - SSE
Green Sausage - Green cylindrical shaped - Determinate - I haven't grown anything like them for a while - MTF - SSE
German Pink - Big, German, Pink - Describes me after I've been in the sun - SSE
Gold Medal - New for me - gold with red streaks - I sense a pattern - SSE
Federle - Big long paste tomatoes. New for me - SSE
Old German - Red and Gold streaked big meaty flesh - Territorial Seed Co.


Here is the first fruit of the year. It is the Green Sausage. Truthfully I pinched off a few fruits a couple of weeks ago or I may have had a couple of nearly ripe fruits in JUNE! This is one odd looking plant. It just sprawls all over the place. The leave are sparse and long with several clusters of fruit spread all over the plant. They seem to be resisting my efforts to stake them. I may let them win.

Here are all the tomatoes. They are in the north bed this year. I also made a better effort to put more space between them as I felt they were a little cramped last year. They are all 2 feet apart in all directions. So far so good.

This is the Hillbilly Potato Loaf. Nice healthy looking plant.

I believe this is a flower from the German Pink.

Hops Update

Well I did it...I killed some hops...I'm so ashamed...I think it was inconsistent watering...too little followed by too much...not to mention the rain mother nature blessed us with in the first half of June. So my Cascades and Magnum are gone. I'll be looking to replace them next spring.

Here is a hop cone, at least it will be. Right now it's a burr. This is a blooming flower from the hop plant. Plants used for cone production are all female. I don't know the technical parts of the flower but I'm pretty sure you can see almost all of them. This is a Kent Golding that came up along the east side of my deck. I thought I dug it all up but...

Here's the burr just starting to emerge. This is a Fuggles I transplanted.

Here is another burr from a Nuggett plant I moved this year.

Here is the Nuggett. the bottom of the eve is about 8 feet tall. I snipped the growing tip at that point. The bines on the left are up to about 10 feet. I snip the growing tips to encourage side shoots. These shoots are where the hop cones actually grow. This plant looks good this year.

The one on the left is the Fuggles. A windy thunderstorm did a number on it and snapped some of the bines at about 3 feet, I looks like the survivors are coming back and I expect them to do fine this year. The one in the middle is a transplanted Kent Golding. It's growing like crazy, about 14-15 feet tall. The one on the right is another Kent Golding. I planted it just to fill in a blank spot and it has taken off. I think next year it will be a winner. Look at the far left at the lattice under my deck...there are some 'volunteer' Fuggles. They really like that corner.