FLOWERS?

Now, I will admit that by this point, this post is rather old, but one day about a month plus ago now, I went to move the ground cherries, tomatillos and eggplants into pots. As you can see the nicely planted seeds had become a mess of plants growing everywhere.  They had started to try and grow over the herbs I had placed in the missing cells spot to contain some water for them. 

Another small jungle

Imagine my surprise when I pulled out the one tomatillo that grew (one out of 6 cells had a plant). The tomatillo was flowering before it ever gets out of the seed starter... I think the grow light was worth it. The plants did seem rather happy under our new addition. We may have to set up a second one next year for a bit better coverage of the plants.

Flowers already?

I left the flowers on as I placed the tomatillo into its pot. The tomatillo and the ground cherries both I used our same method of planting as tomatoes where we buried part of the stem to help increase root production.

into the pot

That day, Pooka and I managed to get all the eggplants, ground cherries, and tomatillo into pots. The plants were all much bigger and sturdier than in previous years, so I do think the grow light has helped. Although it is always nice to be able to say "and at least now they are in dirt." Although, lets be honest, Pooka just loves being able to say "And now I am playing in the dirt."

More pots done

We also managed to get the valerian and the yarrow into pots as well. Due to pot space (and lack of pots) we did have to have them share a space, but it worked out great when we were transplanting later. These 2 ended up living on the front porch to harden off while the rest went out to live in the same jungle as the tomatoes. But at least they are done now. 

Yarrow and valerian

Now we wait

Last week, we finally got the tomatoes started. Fortunatly this time Pooka was right on top of things and we were able to knock them out after school one night. The big question mark this year is how well will the Pooka tomatoes do. These were the seeds we saved last year.

Pooka's Tomato seeds 

I will admit, that once we opened our little paper envelope, the tomato seeds from the Pooka tomatoes looked slightly different. Slightly more "fuzzy" but it was completely dry and didn't feel like mold. I do wonder if this is the difference between commercial seeds and home grown.

Pooka seeds. 

 Due to the differing nature of the seeds and the fact I forgot to viability test them, I will say I told Pooka to be a bit more heavy handed. Usually, I only allow 2-3 seeds per cell, but with these, I just kinda let her go nuts. Hopefully that doesn't come back to bite me. I know she just grabbed a clump and placed them in each cell. We are not really expecting much from these seeds, so anything is a bonus.

Placing seeds

The other new seeds we are trying are some seeds from Pooka's Great Aunt B. She mailed Pooka these seeds in her birthday present. I placed in the website on the package to see where these seeds came from, and was more than a bit confused to be taken to a record company. However, the seeds were on the website and they do appear to be very interesting tomatoes claiming to "attract moose like creatures to the 1 ton tomatoes." Daddy hopes it is just good marketing, but we will see. Either way, these do seem to be rather fun tomatoes that I know Pooka is looking forward to growing.

These should be interesting seeds.

We also planted some yarrow and Valerian in this tray, as well as our tomatillos and eggplant and the new ground cherries. Pooka is all excited to try her new plants fruits. All in all, the seeds are all planted. Now we begin waiting as the heat mats under the trays hopefully jump start the process.

Now we wait

Harvest time

This is the time of year I love. The time of year where I finally see where all that effort and money and time went and I get results of our labor. Now generally, we should of been rolling in produce since July, but with the weird weather this year, its taken a bit of time to get things really progressing. In the last 2 weeks, I have been able to walk away saying 'Yep, The garden is producing."

Anyone hungry?

This is the sight that greeted us two weekends ago. That is 15 lbs of tomatoes, over a lb of basil for basil jelly, cucumbers, squash and peppers, oh my. We canned almost all of it in a canning session that took 6 hours, and set off the carbon monoxide detector as well as the smoke alarm. Nothing bad happened, we just were canning with the air on since it was a very hot weekend. Turns out, we put too much humidity in the air and freaked out the detectors. Lesson of the day, can with the windows open. Pooka loves her basil jelly and asked if we could try purple basil jelly as well, so we did. More on that another day. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the finished products, but I will be updating the harvest page and the canning page hopefully when I am done here.

Then last weekend, I wish I had taken pictures. We had 22 lbs of tomatoes and 2 lbs of tomatillos come in since the previous canning, not to mention peppers and things. We were in such a rush to deal with it all because we had a busy weekend and we knew it wouldn't keep another week. Pooka had a trip to a farm that day for girl scouts, so once we got back, it was straight to canning. She had no problem getting in there and handing us jars and lids out of the warm water so so she could do her part. She loves helping us, I only wish our kitchen was slightly bigger so we had room for her.

In the end, Pooka has already taken basil jelly sandwiches to school for 4 days since we made her the jelly. She loves being able to say she made the jelly and grew the basil, and I am happy to have made it with her.

Purple Tomatillo

Pooka finally got her purple tomatillo. It was one of many we harvested over the weekend. 2 lbs of tomatillos that we in turned processed into salsa verde. In fact, we made 5 half pints got were processed so we can have a bit of summer all winter. Pooka was just so excited to see that it was purple, however the salsa still came out green instead of purple. Turns out these little guys only turn purple where the sun hits them.

Purple Tomatillo

In other news, I do have the first of the month pictures that I am hoping to get up this week. The back to school rush as well as the garden finally really producing has made things a bit busier then I expected. 

Hedging bets may equal LOTS of tomatillos

This spring, I would of told you we were never going to see purple tomatillos. They didn't seem to grow well and they were rather sad looking. So I bought regular green tomatillo plants from our nursery to be sure we had something. Anything at that point would of been better then not having them at all. I had put the 3 most likely to die purple tomatillos in pots and told them to live or die but make up their minds. Pooka was rather saddened by the idea only getting verde (green, she speaks a bit of Spanish) tomatillos but when I told her I couldn't start more she accepted it.

Tomatillos decided to live

A couple of weeks ago, I went outside and realized that the tomatillo plants I had given up on had decided that they were happy as can be. They were big enough they needed to go into the ground. I had left just a small bit of space in that bed that I could put them in, so they were planted next to the green ones. Does this mean we may not get purple tomatillos? I have no idea. I am sure they will cross pollinate, but I don't know what that will mean. Until then, we are just going to wait and let them grow. Pooka was so excited to plant her purpura (purple in Spanish) tomatillos she is hoping to make one batch of purpura salsa this year. We will have to see what we get. I guess I shouldn't of given up. However, I will take this over not having any tomatillos anyday.

Tomatillo issues

The tomatillos have been looking very sad all summer. In fact, we have had barely a pound of fruit off it. I was ready to give in. I don't know what is wrong with them, but I doubted I would be able to fix it this year. I just wanted to know since I did promise Pooka we would try it again next year. 

Sad looking tomatillos

I picked some fruit and some leaves before Pooka and I went to the nursery on Saturday. We went inside and asked them if they knew what was wrong with the plant. They thought it needed fertilized at first, and so did I, so I told them we had fertilized them twice.

See the sad state of the leaves

 They said they didn't see any real insect damage, so they don't think that was it, which left the tomatillos with a fungus. The nice man at the nursery showed me a fungicide that WOULD be safe to use on food. He even said it would be safe to pick after 24 hours. I asked him if it was worth even trying seeing as the season was ending and he told me if I tried this, I should be able to get one really good harvest for Pooka. He then talked to Pooka a bit about what she wanted to make with the tomatillos.

Some of the leaves even have a yellow tint to them

As much as I generally hate using chemicals on the garden, this was a have to do/it can't hurt too much I guess. We are going to try it and then see what happens. Worst case is it doesn't help and we give up and wait for next year. Best case, Pooka gets more then one jar of Salsa verde. 

Getting closer

The tomatillo plants are filling out. Pooka eyes them daily wondering when she can finally harvest. I keep telling her it should be soon, but we have to wait till papery skin pulls back from the fruit. Pooka is waiting anxiously for the day she can start making green salsa.

Tomatillos on the plant

We had a couple of tomatillos fall off the plant during a storm one night, but there wasn't much to actually call a harvest.  Pooka wanted to try these, but I told her they probably didn't taste right.

Almost a harvest

Daddy has already consented that we will probably be growing tomatillos next year, and that Pooka consistantly drools over the purple tomatillo seeds she has seen in stores. We have already talked about picking them up soon so Pooka can grow them next year. Then we will be making Salsa Purpura instead of Salsa Verde.

Signs of progress

A walk into the garden shows the fact we are getting close to really producing food. We have tomatillos that are starting to look like tomatillos.

Tomatillos

 We have a second broccoli head appearing on the plants.

Brocolli

 And the blue corn looks to be starting to get there as well.

blue corn

Maybe soon I can stop going to the store. Maybe

Food glorious food

It is official. The garden is producing.

Pooka's and my morning walk through the garden showed signs of food starting that was more then just leafy veggies.

The peas are going great. In this picture alone, you can easily see 3 but the plant has double that. We are just waiting for them to fill out and we can pick them. We could pick them now as snow peas, but I know both kids love sugar snap peas better.

The green bean plants are producing as well. They are smaller in size, but seem to be happy in their spot. We never seem to get enough for a side of just green beans, but we do get enough to have them as a nice snack for the kids, which I am always willing to let them have.

Here you can see a tiny little tomatillo growing on the back of a flower. If this keeps up, we will have tomatillos coming out of our ears. I think Daddy is as excited as Pooka is for them.

Here is a tiny little cucumber on our tiny little plant. I figured it might take longer to get cucumbers, but the plant is growing and apparently making cucumbers. This is a family staple around here.

Tomatoes. Thats right, I found a tomato on one of the tomato plants. I do need to go through and prune the suckers off the tomatoes (After I re-read how to) but its good to see we are already getting tomatoes. Hopefully we won't be waiting till the last minute to get them like last year.

Tidying up

With all the transplanting, a few more minor things have been pushed to the side. As a result, it seemed that everything was getting a tad untidy. Now while this didn't mother me too much, it was one more thing I needed to work on. In times like now where I am trying to play catch up, that one more thing can drive me nuts.

A perfect example of this was that the sunflowers needed tired up. It is a five minute job, but one that gets put on the back burner way too easily.

Sunflowers before

 The sunflowers had fallen over, the weeds were getting bad mostly due to the rain, and you could barely see some of our sunflowers. 10 minutes, the plant tape and a pair of garden shears and it looked much much better. You could really see the height the sunflowers have started to reach. A few will be needing taller supports very soon. I am happy to say we only lost one velvet sunflower. The velvets are smaller, but they look healthy.

Sunflowers after

 Another thing I realized this morning was that the tomatillos are getting fairly good sized, and would need some support soon. Especially with all the flowers on them. I was getting worried if I didn't them some support soon, I may not be able to get a tomato cage on them.

Tomatillos before

During the tomatillo caging process, we had one flower that was given in sacrifice to the gardening gods. May they have a wonderful harvest as we hope to.

The tomatillo for the gods

 After a bit of trial and error between me and Pooka (especially since I have never used a real tomato cage before) we got the tomatillos supported. You can really start to see how much they have grown. We hope to get some good crops out of them.

Tomatillos after

While I had the cages out, I realized I really needed to get them on "Captain Eggplant" as Pooka calls him. That is the name that the Growum's call it, and thats what she has decided their names are. Anyway, Captain Eggplant and his little buddy were getting rather big as well and I wanted to get them supported since supposedly they can get a bit heavy as well.

Eggplant before

 A bit less fumbling from Pooka and I and we had the cages on. However, I forgot that since they are in pots, the cage won't go down as far as they will in the dirt, so they stand up a bit taller. But this should help the eggplants from trying to take over the deck.

Eggplant after

I did manage to get the peas connected to the trellis and the deck a bit better this afternoon. However, I was running in and out between storms, so there is no good pictures. I can say for certain we have not only flowers on our peas, but I saw a few pea pods as well. Pooka might be able to harvest her first pea in the coming days.

 

While there is still plenty to do (trellis's for the morning glory, squash and zuchinni, weeding, start corralling the tomatoes, ect), it is nice to be able to say the day was not wasted, and I knocked off a few things off the old list. 4 things done. 200 to go.

Tomatillos tomatillos tomatillos let me go

After all the headaches to get the tomatillos for Pooka. I was quite ready to get them in the ground and be done with them. The minute we got home on Saturday, Pooka and I got them planted while Daddy made lunch. First Mommy had to see what kind of spacing they needed. Turns out they need about 12-18" between them, so I gave them plenty of room this first year, and we can shrink them later if need be.

Figuring out spacing

Some of the plants were already flowering or had tomatillos growing on them. While this is a great sign that the plant is healthy, it also meant the plant wouldn't be focusing on getting good roots when it went in and I would rather it get established and then make even more tomatillos.

Flowering

I pinched off the flowers and tomatillos and gave them to Pooka. She was going to put them in the bottom of the holes as compost.


No flowers now

Then Pooka and I dug a fairly deep hole. Turns out tomatillos are like tomatoes, and if you bury part of the stem, that stem will grow roots and it will help give the tomatillo a better root system. (More on this later)

Hole before Pooka put in the composting flowers

Lastly, we put the mulch back around the tomatillo's and gave it a good drink. Now to let it get established and then hopefully we can get some nice tomatillos out of it for some salsa verde. Pooka is dreaming of salsa verde, and I am sure I will be coming up with other recipes for them.

Tomatillos ready to go

Going to the nursery, Pooka's going to get plants...

If you remember, Last Thursday Pooka and I went to the nursery to "plan out what she wanted to buy."

Well, if you remember, they didn't have tomatillos that Pooka has been asking me for since January, but said to call on Friday to see if they got them in. We called Friday, and nope, they weren't in yet. We called on Saturday morning and someone said they had come in. So Pooka and I talked Daddy and Brother into coming because I wanted to know what I had to save space for in the garden and Pooka wanted her tomatillos.

We got to the farther away nursery and couldn't find them. We asked and apparently there was a miscommunication because they had not arrived and were probably not going to. Sigh...

Yes, this meant a very very upset Pooka. I jumped in and made a deal with her. If she gave me $10 of her birthday money to buy herbs for the front bed, I would take her to the nursery we usually go to and I would buy her tomatillos with the $10.

This meant she would get to go to 2 nurseries and get her tomatillos. So she wandered around the Far Away nursery and found a few things she liked. Another strawberry plant, a lavender plant, a chocolate mint plant, a venus fly trap (Wait, how does this make food for me?) and I got us an aloe 

plant (since I had a feeling we may need it with all the outside time coming up), some more thyme.

Haul from store A

The venus fly trap has become a favorite with Pooka. She has also asked for a drosera plant, but she didn't have enough money. I told her one carnivorous plant at a time please.

 

Flies anyone?

But now the search was on for tomatillos. I called our favorite nursery just blocks from our house and they said "We should still have some." Luckily it was on our way home so we stopped by. Daddy and Brother waited in the car since as Brother put it, "It is just another nursery." True, but this one had what Pooka wanted.  

 

We went back to the greenhouse with the vegetables and they had 6 tomatillo plants left. Thank goodness. Pooka decided to get 3. Since she still had some money left over, we got some romaine lettuce seeds so that we can hopefully grow some lettuce everyone will like.Now to just get it all in the ground.

Tomatillos and lettuce seeds