One long weekend to come

Two weeks ago, we had a storm come through while I was at the other house in Ohio. The high winds and rain along with hail flattened my tall zinnias which were one of the show pieces of the gardens. The trellis that was holding my Hyacinth vines tipped over and was pulled down by the wind and also the weight of the vines. I did some hasty repair jobs in order to get the flowers to stand up again with the help of twine but this weekend, I’m going to have to pull the flowers up.

This season was too short to allow me to get as much produce as I usually harvest. It seems to have taken forever for the cherry tomatoes to grow and ripen, and the husky tomatoes on grew the size of golf balls. I wasn’t happy with the zinnias in the front of the house. I had planted what I thought were the giant flowers I usually plant and it turned out that I must have gathered the seeds last year and put them in the packs then marked the contents wrong.

This weekend I’m going to have to pull up all the things in the garden that was flattened by the storm. We had another mega storm come through last night and I’m sure I’ll have more of a mess than I originally have seen. Where the heck did our summer go?

Cherry Tomatoes and No Sun

I’m sad readers. I have planted cherry tomatoes again and they just aren’t getting the sun that they need to turn red. There are plenty of little green tomatoes on the cherry tomato vines, and the other tomatoes I planted was a type of cherry, but more like a husky one. To me…they would just be an in between cherry tomato and beef steak! LOL!

I suppose I could use what doesn’t turn red on the cherry t’s vine as mini fried green tomatoes.  I’ve not ever looked it up or heard of anyone making these bite size snacks, which I actually am in love with. But I’m going to try it. Maybe “husky” fried  green tomatoes are in order not also!

Summer seems to have hit us for about a week of real summer days. I loved it. But now…judging from my plants…not just the tomatoes, the prices of the produce will double in the cost this  year, like beef has in the last two. Just my take on it folks!

First tomato of the season

Today I went outside and there was a ripe tomato on one of my tomato plants. I didn’t think it was fully ripe, but when I touched it, it fell into my hand, so I figured it was ready to eat. To be honest, it was a great feeling seeing that tomato ripe on the vine! I got a slow start, but our growing season is long, and by the looks of the way my plants are growing and the tomatoes on the vines right now…I’ll have plenty of tomatoes to eat and give away.

When you live in Michigan, you have to start tomato plants indoors and figure out when is the best time to plant them in the ground without risk of a late snow or killing frost. Usually I try to get the plants in the ground in mid-April. But some years we are still having freaky snow storms in April, so I have to wait until May.

If we can get them in early enough, there are plenty of fresh, ripe tomatoes ready for picking by the 4th of July. I’ve already beat that goal this year!