"they're here"

hillbilly potato leaf tomato

that's right folks, we finally have some ripened hillbilly potato leaf tomatoes. the three plants that i planted in ground are starting to ripen and are doing really well..... well, as long as you don't count all the ugly cracks in the skins, some dry yellow leaves here and there, and of course any of the other tomato plant diseases that i have failed to recognise. but cracks... smacks... i'm eating them anyway. i wish i could have tasted the very first of the ripened tomatoes, but that one was attacked by ants and had to be thrown out. also, when i got back from the michigan trip, the three big plants needed to be seriously pruned back and in the process 2 green tomatoes hit the dirt and 3 i purposely cut off cause the stalks had already bent over beyond repair. and then today as i was trying to cut off another ripe tomato from the back of the plant, 2 more green ones got knocked off. so now the debate is whether to make fried green tomatoes or try something new and can a batch of green tomato relish. we'll see how they hold up on the counter over the next week and i will decide then. but for now let's take a look at the first ripened hillbilly potato leaf tomato to be successful grown by little ole me.

saturday august 1st 2009
it's about darn time!

also in the garden yesterday were two squash that needed to be harvested. next year i will be hard pressed to grow squash again. i'm not the biggest fan of squash and was really not a fan of this particular type, although maisy looks pretty interested in them. (i got this plant from a tailgate market in ashville and it was simply labeled as "squash" so i'm not exactly sure what variety it is.) so next year i think i will just buy them from the farm stands around town when ever i get an itch for one. or maybe i will try to find a nice heirloom variety to grow. we'll see. let's go inside and slice up that tomato!!!

just look at that!!!!
all she needed was a dash of salt and pepper.
she might be an uggo, but she was mighty darn tasty!!!

i paired her with some left over rice that i doctored up with scrambled eggs, peas, corn, and tamarind sauce. what a yummy lunch. if i am going to lose the pounds that i gained while eating like bear in michigan, i'm gonna need to see a lot more lunches like this.

ooohhh.... i love this time of year when my counters look like this!!!! on the left are the green tomatoes and some roma tomatoes from my garden.

sunday august 2nd 2009.
more ugly HBPL tomatoes.
which reminds me that i haven't shown you any of the other tomatoes that i have been snacking on these last few weeks.

here are some cherry roma tomatoes that i think i picked and ate prior to going to portland.

some martin's roma and cherry roma from a few weeks back.
next year i hope to have even more of this variety. the plan is to plant all the tomato plants in the ground and reserve the containers for herbs, lettuce, and such. although my porch herb garden this year was a astounding failure.

martin's roma from this weekend.

tiny cherry tomatoes from a plant that never made it out of the red party cup.

here are the 3 HBPL plants
(after i gave them a good pruning on friday.)
next year i am going with cages, cause i am sick sick sick and tired of tying these babies up every few weeks. those green spiral stakes were no match for the boisterous HBPL. i had to install more stakes due to the size and girth of the plants and "weights" on both ends to keep the plants from toppling over during this one really windy afternoon. i originally got the green spiral stakes because i thought they would look nicer than the cages and now just at them....

grow tomatoes grow.

the three yellow bell tomato plants that were sowed from seeds outside late in the season just might make some fruit yet. their not to spindly looking and even though are still pretty short, there are a few blooms on them. finger's crossed.

this is pretty much what the container cherry roma tomatoes are doing at this point.

all spindly and sad looking. almost all the container tomato plants will be pulled up over the next week or so and the containers will be re purposed for the fall garden.

the two martin's roma plants ("plant A" above) that were transplanted in to the ground really really late are actually doing pretty good. a few new blooms here and there. we'll see what happens.

looking at these plants ("plant B"), it reminds me that i don't think i told you about the great transplant experiment i did about a month back. i will try to make the story brief.....

remember about a month or so back, the tomatoes started coming in, but most of the tomatoes in the container were getting blossom end rot. well after sprinkling some crushed eggshells around the plants and talking with a few gardening folks, i decided to take some more aggressive measures. i mean, really, after nursing those seedlings for weeks and weeks, i wasn't just going to stand back and just hope for the best. so i decided to take two of the better looking container plants and transplant them in the ground to see what would happen. what did i have to lose anyway. on one of the plants, every single one of the tomatoes had rotten bottoms. so i gathered up a tomato arsenal and got to work.

my tomato arsenal.....
kelp meal, worm poop, epsom salt, two different kinds of compost, one of which is made with eggshells and chicken poop so it is supposed to be high in calcium. i also got some straw to mulch the plants to help with moisture control.

two martin's roma tomato plants sharing a container that is terribly terribly two small for the both of them.

i decided to place one of them where the dead squash plant was living (or not living).

"plant A" after the transplant.

"plant B" there on the right after the transplant.
(asparagus pea plants in the foreground)

north field about a month ago.

north field today.
ok it's a suttle change, but the tomatoes are growing. the same cannot be said for the aspargus pea plants in the right lower corner. "thrives in poor soil" my arse.