Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes

UPDATE 10/25/2023:

So, that's the end of the season then!  See you next spring.  

ORIGINAL 10/21 POST:

Now that we're at the end of the gardening season, my tomatoes are still coming on and ripening. And they will until it freezes.  If that happens soon, no problem this year, because I've had tomatoes out my ears, which is what I wanted so I could put up juice and sauce to last me through the winter months. The plants grew out over the tops of the cages and back down to the ground. So, hurray for tomato weather, even if it was hard on other things. 

Some daily harvests...

'German Johnson' and 'Speckled Roman'

'German Johnson' and 'Speckled Roman'

'German Johnson'

'German Johnson', 'Speckled Roman', and 'Supersweet 100' cherry tomatoes

This year's planting of 'Brunswick' cabbage is now being harvested.  The heads are huge, and the taste is very peppery.  I probably won't plant them again.  (Although I have a fall planting of a mix from Pinetree, and I don't know what varieties they actually are.)

I'm trying to make some sauerkraut with a very simple recipe from Pioneer Woman.  So far (about two and a half weeks), it's really salty and not peppery like the raw cabbage.  I have to admit I did forget the part about screwing on a plastic lid and instead used my metal canning rings.  I don't know if that has caused any problems.  If so, I haven't noticed.  Next time I'll use plastic to compare.

I made some cabbage, kielbasa, and potato soup, and the peppery taste mellowed out.

A volunteer dill plant has become quite large in my cut flower plot.

And a parsleyworm caterpillar has taken up lodging on - of all things - the parsley.  If it holds out and forms a chrysalis over winter, it should emerge as a black swallowtail butterfly next spring.

A couple of volunteer basil plants are showing their different flowers.  The thai basil has a greenish-white spike, and the cardinal basil has lovely dark purple pompons.

I had some seeds fall out of one of my packets, but I don't know which and didn't recognize them.  I planted them recently and am looking forward to discovering what they are.  Hopefully it doesn't freeze before I find out. *

For four years, I've been trying to get some Korean angelica going and have had absolutely zero luck.  This year, I finally got one seedling up, and I'm trying my best to keep it alive.  It's very slow growing, and very sensitive to changes in soil moisture, which has been a problem since I've been gone on dog-sitting jobs so much of the growing season.

Korean angelica

The roses are still performing. I managed to keep them from being destroyed by both Japanese beetles (not a big population this year) and aphids.  I'm attributing it to using a systemic insecticide and being home at the right time to spray aphids with Sevin (sigh) before they could get a good hold.

'Razzle Dazzle'

'Shazam!'

'Shazam!' underbellies

I'm guessing there might be one more post before the season ends, but if we don't get a freeze before Christmas (hahahaha), there may be two.

UPDATE :  Dang.  There may be none!  The 10-day forecast:

*UPDATE 11/08/2023: 

That, I believe, is 'Seaside' spinach.

It survived the 4-day freeze (no snow), as did the celery, both of which I covered.  At last look (November 8), it looks like this (surrounded by poppy seedlings that fell from a field poppy plot earlier in the year):

I hate that late October freeze that seems to happen every year before the temperatures rise again.  If not for that, I'd have tomatoes and roses at Thanksgiving this year.  Such is the gardening life.

What a waste.

I did find patches of new bright green grass after the freeze.  Going with the definition of a weed as a plant in a place where it's not wanted, this qualified.  It was growing in gravel, and I pulled up bunches like sod and laid them in the paths where I'm about to succeed finally in getting rid of weeds and growing grass.

I also scattered some seed in the bare spots, so I'm looking forward to next spring to see what I've got.  Fingers crossed.

Approaching Hell

Wildfires are raging from Canada to Hawaii, and much of the mainland is experiencing devastating weather events. 

In mid-Missouri, it's about to get too hot to garden. 

So this post is from more recent tolerable, and even mild, weather.

Aphids have appeared on new rose growth, so I've been trying to stay on top of them - unfortunately with Sevin, but the last couple of years I tried to use only neem oil and soap, unsuccessfully.  This past week I've been in Chicagoland, so I don't know what I'll find when I get back, but the 'Mother of Pearl' I managed to propagate from a cutting (the mother of Mother of Pearl died over winter) was looking lovely when I left.

The whole of the garden was actually doing pretty well, considering all the crazy weather this season.

But not the cucumbers.  They're barely hanging on.  

I harvested less than half a dozen early on, and nothing since. I planted two varieties: 'Marketmore' and 'Beit Alpha'.  Neither has taken off. They should have those wagon wheels hidden by now.  That's two years in a row I haven't had a decent cucumber crop, and they're usually coming out of my ears.

Surprisingly to me, the 'Calima' green beans are still producing well.  Were, I should say.  Surely by the time I get back in a few days they'll be done.  But I've thought they were surely done several times already.

I have three varieties of celery that are all performing well, so they obviously have no complaints about the weather.

This is the one I bought from a nursery that was labeled only "celery".  It has the largest stalks of all the varieties.

This pink celery is one I grew from seed.

Besides the pink celery, I started a dark green variety as well. I don't know which seed produced this plant that has white stalks, because I didn't have any seeds that should have produced it.

This one 'Brunswick' cabbage plant has become a giant.  The others of its kind are about half this size and more what I would have expected.

'Brunswick' and 'Ruby Perfection' (bottom-most) cabbage

'Cardinal' basil is happy enough. No problems there. But I never have any problems with basil.

I got one - count 'em, one - decent cantaloupe this year.  The caged ones have produced essentially nothing, and the ones that sprawled on the compost hill were the Small Persian variety that tasted only barely sweet.

Small Persian melon

The wire net bags kept the raccoons from eating them, though.  So next year I plan to plant my favorite sweet variety 'Savor' in a space where they can sprawl on the ground and bag them this way.

I don't know if the damaged part is where raccoons tried to get at them or if they were the result of insects in the wet soil beneath the melons.  Maybe both.  Whatever it was, it didn't get through the rinds.

Fun stuff:

One day I noticed a group of ammophila wasps on the tarragon.  I noticed them because I was trimming the plant (that's now quite large so I cut it in roughly the shape of a pyramid with hedge clippers).  I didn't want to disturb them since they're a beneficial insect, preying on moth and sawfly caterpillars, so the plant didn't get a finished haircut.  I don't know which particular ammophila these are, as there are over 200 different species.

I assume this is worm casting.  It looks like it, but it would have been a very, very large worm if it is.

So...until next time (and hopefully the garden hasn't burnt up by the time I get back to it)...

A little rain goes a long way

We're not getting as much rain as we need, but we're getting enough that I can stop watering for a bit.  Things are really taking off.  

The 'Calima' bush beans are up.

Wasabi radishes are filling out.  I hope they decide to make an actual radish this year.  Otherwise, they won't be planted again.  Well, they may not even then, depending on whether I like them.

This is the first year I've planted roma style tomatoes.  'Speckled Roman' looked beautiful last summer in my sister's Wisconsin garden, so I thought I'd give them a shot.  The plants all look like they were hit by herbicide.  They weren't.  Maybe they just don't like it here.

'Tender Sweet' carrots are up and very weedy.  They get lawnmower clipping trash sprayed on them by a careless lawn mower, and I have a heck of a time pulling out little grass seedlings.  After my first year of carrots that did beautifully, I haven't had much luck.  Thinning carrots is a difficult job, so this year I tried very hard to sow the seed sparsely.  It looks like I managed it ok.  Maybe too sparsely. Hopefully the carrots will grow nicely and be both tender and sweet.  I recently planted another patch of 'SugarSnax' carrots, but they have yet to germinate.

Newly emerged potato plants were hit by a freeze, but they've come out of it just fine.  I planted 'Yukon Gold' and 'All Blue' this year.  This is 'All Blue':

I'm looking forward to finding out how the blue ones compare in texture and taste.

I have several varieties of lettuce, most of which got off to a poor start due to the unexpected cold weather early on.  The 'Green Ice' and 'New Red Fire' varieties were sown at the same time, and they've certainly responded differently.

'New Red Fire'

'Early purple Vienna' kohlrabi plants are getting established, but they're not nearly as big as the ones I still have in pots to give away.

My favorite cantaloupe - 'Savor' - seeds germinated and grew poorly.  I transplanted three anyway, but I'm not expecting much.  It was last year's seed, so maybe it doesn't store well, even in the freezer.  Or maybe I should have direct seeded like I usually do. I'll order more for next year.

In the meantime, I ordered some small Persian melons to try.  The catalog promised very sweet fruit, so I'm hoping they'll be at least nearly as good as 'Savor'.  I set them out a little earlier than I might otherwise do, but I need to get things established well before I leave later this month for two weeks out of state.  

Small Persian melon

Tomatoes are caged, peppers are planted, oregano is starting to get out of control, and chives are blooming.

I have never met so many mole tunnels in my life.  The whole garden seems undermined.  I've been trying to drill holes with the water hose and flood them, and put mole bait in the tunnels they reuse.  I planted a row of basil along my tomatoes, about 20 plants, and I hit a tunnel setting in all but 2! 

My poor zinnia patch looks like it was bombed from my attempts to rid it of moles.

I planted some 'Giant Rattle' annual poppies for the first time this year, and the foliage is looking like the giant part isn't a lie.

I still don't know what variety this iris is, but I love it.  The blooms are huge, and so lovely.  

And now I have another iris whose name I don't know.  I know the plants I ordered for this bed did not include a rich purple one, so I can only assume the seller got one mixed in of another name, but I'm not complaining.

I would like to know its name, though.  I suppose I can just give it one.  Or find a dark purple iris that looks like it and call it that.  It looks like one from the company I ordered from called 'Titan's Glory', so that's probably what I'll call it.

'Victoria Falls' (pale purple), 'English Charm' (two tone orange), 'Penny Lane' (brilliant orange), pink Gladiolus bizantinus, and oriental lilies yet to bloom

This year there's only one stem of 'Penny Lane'.  I hope that doesn't mean it's giving up.

'English Charm'

'Jade Eyes' white allium, 'Tangerine Gem' Spanish poppy, 

and orange-scarlet oriental poppies

honeybees buzzing an oriental poppy

'Tangerine Gem' Spanish poppies

purple blooming 'Orange Balsam' creeping thyme 

covering the ground in the rose garden