Saturday, August 7, 2010

Veggie Garden in Kenmore

My friend Bliss recently posted a picture of the tomatoes she grew in San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico and it reminded me to check on our own tomatoes.

Having moved to Kenmore from Salem, Oregon in mid-May we had furniture to buy and a household to set up – with little time left for starting a garden. So by the time we got seeds in the ground it was toward the end of June. Late planting, combined with a very rainy June, has resulted in a stunted veggie garden. But we brought 2 "patio" tomato plants with us from Salem and one of them recently gave birth.


I have to laugh. This is the first tomato we harvested. And that’s a regular-sized Red Delicious apple. The tomato was fairly sweet, but it had no seeds. ??


This is the plant it came from. Mike gave all our tomato plants “haircuts” a few weeks ago – he saw a black sort of fungus on the leaves and didn’t want it to spread. In retrospect, we’re not sure that was the best thing to do. But I did harvest the other red tomatoes last night and we ate them with fresh basil from our garden. Again, no seeds in these tomatoes from the patio tomato plant. ??


On the side of our apt building we have a long, narrow garden with the other tomato plants, radishes, green onions, squash and the row of mammoth sunflowers. I just hope we get more sun so we can eat at least one radish and the sunflowers produce big, yellow, happy sunflowers.


In the back yard, we didn’t even dig up the soil. I just planted some pumpkin seeds and they have come to life. Again, we need some sun if we’re going to make jack-o-lanterns with these babies.


We have a small patio outside our dining room and since it’s covered it provides a cool refuge when the sun does come out. And Mike has become quite the expert with the charcoal BBQ. It’s a lot different than using our old gas grill, but he’s got it down.


And here we have 2 tiki light fountains that match the one in the bathroom. That reminds me...where in the world is that Baby Jesus? MIKE!

4 comments:

Theresa in Mèrida said...

I'm just planting mine and it seems like the rest of the world is harvesting theirs. Your garden looks nice, if the weather is anything like Northern California, you should still have tomatoes in November, so there is still time.
regards,
Theresa

1st Mate said...

You northerners just have a really short growing season, I guess. The miniature varieties are probably best because you can harvest them sooner. Unless you like fried green tomatoes.

GlorV1 said...

It's always so much fun planting our own veggies. I think it's great that you are doing that. Before long you both will start to really enjoy the fruits of your labor and come next planting season, for sure you both will be out there planting your plants/seeds. Great post. I love your tiki's.

Anonymous said...

your garden looks great. we bought one of those upside down tomato growing containers but have been so busy, we have yet to plant any. hopefully tomorrow.

aha-now i know who to give the bag of charcoal my niece left with us. we now have a gas grill.

we hiked to lake 22 on thurs. and yesterday we spent the day on the peninsula. we had a picnic at fort worden state park then went up to hurricane ridge. they loved the area and are now hooked on hiking. today steve grilled salmon, his specialty-it was delicious.

i'll call you in a few days.

teresa