Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - The Nighttime Edition, with Bonus Action Shots

Deliciously fragrant brugmansia--this one a passalong from a friend at the botanical garden

As I haven't made it home before dark at all this week (a combination of too much  work, and too little daylight in the early fall) I didn't get a chance to take any pictures for today's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gardens.

'Acapulco' agastache, bleached by camera flash, fronting blue-foliaged sea kale. Lurking in the depths behind is an oakleaf hydrangea.

I have a mental note of all of the flowers that are blooming here, though, so I'm posting a list... along with a couple of (terrible quality) nighttime shots of blooming flowers, and two bonus "garden action" shots at the end:


Shrubs, Grasses, Vines & Perennials:  'Albury Purple' St. John's wort, 'Rotstrahlbusch' switchgrass, lonicera sempervirens, Russian sage, 'Grosso' lavender, one lone Japanese anemone, 'Acapulco' agastache in two colors, 'Hameln' pennisetum, 3 kinds of oregano, peppermint, spearmint, and hardy plumbago (yes, still!)


Vegetables, Annuals, Tropicals:  bronze fennel, 'Bonfire' begonia, passalong brugmansia, purple heart, yellow snapdragons, 'Black & Blue' salvia, 'Lady in Red' salvia, 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth, portulacas, passionflower vine, 'Vista Purple' salvia, various basils, 'Dragonwing' begonia



Not much... not by my usual September garden standards!  So I'll supplement my list with a couple of  bonus "garden action shots":

Yes, they are doing what you think they're doing.

And afterward, the one on the right looked rather embarrassed at having been caught in the act:

Hope you all have an exciting, adventurous, Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!

Early Fall Weekend

I've been busy harvesting in the garden this weekend, as you can see from the photo above.  The surprisingly zesty 'Italian Roaster' peppers (the long red ones on the right) are going ganbusters, but all of my bells are disappointingly small and thin-walled. But the tomatoes and eggplants are doing just fine in spite of this summer's drought.  The colors in the (old, trashpicked) sturdy trug above sort of remind me of the foliage colors in the mixed veggie-and-ornamental garden:

That photo was taken from a crouching position in front of one of the clay tile planters, which you could see dead center if it weren't obscured by bloodgrass, purple basil and portulaca.  The swirls of plant colors in this area even look cool when viewed from above:

And here's a fuller shot from the front, so you can get a better sense of what all is going on here.  Bloodgrass, basil, cabbage, tomatoes, salvia, amaranth, oh my!

I thought that this might be the first summer without my beloved 'Hopi Red Dye' amaranth, because the seedlings were so late to emerge.  But they came up eventually, and now tower over my head in spite of the cutting back I did in August:

Speaking of slow starts, my tropical purple passionflower vine FINALLY began to bloom this week:

It is now making up for its slow start adding color through the artemisia:

And all across the fence:

A slightly less wanted bloom is this:

At first I thought that this explosion of purslane in my garden came from the common weed, and a dry summer... but this looks like the progeny of one of the fancy, large-flowering 'Yubi' portulacas that I have had in the clay tile planter for the last few years.  The individual flowers are the same size, but they aren't nearly as floriferous as the true Yubis.  Bummer.

Well, it smells like my latest batch of roasting veggies is about done, so it's time to post this and get back into the kitchen to cut some more tomatoes.  Hope that you're either getting all of your gardening chores done this weekend, so you feel both tired and satisfied...

... or that you're enjoying your trip to wherever the wind decides to take you:

Either way, have a wonderful weekend!

2010 Tomato Harvest: A Review

As usual, I grew a variety of funky tomatoes this year.  Some, like 'Black Krim' and 'Cherokee Purple' can be considered old standbys by now... and others, like 'Lemon Boy,' 'Great White,' and 'Big Rainbow' were new varieties, grown in an attempt to get my boyfriend on board with my tomato mania.  (He's gone from "not really liking tomatoes all that much," to "liking them roasted, or fresh as long as they aren't too tomato-y." Baby steps!)

Top to bottom, and left to right within rows:  Big Rainbow, Cherokee Purple, LaRoma Gold, Great White, Brandywine Red, Black Krim, Lemon Boy

So I can remember what to plant again, and what to pass by, here's my 2010 tomato review:

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Black Krim:  Still my absolute favorite, taste-wise--rich and almost smoky. (So good it never needs salted!) Better production on this year's plants, so I am definitely saving seeds from this plant.


Cherokee Purple:  Second only to 'Black Krim' in flavor, but usually favored over BK in my garden for its bountiful production.  However, my CP plants produced terribly this year, and the vines seemed all-around wimpy.  That will teach me to be so lazy about seed-starting that I have to buy plants--thankfully, I still have last year's seeds to use for 2011.


Big Rainbow:  I usually like the sweet tomato taste of striped tomatoes, but 'Big Rainbow' was a big letdown.  It was so... bland.  Like when you pick a melon too early, and it's juicy but has very little flavor.  I tried salting it to see if the flavor enhancement would help... and just ended up feeling like I was eating watery salt.  Definitely won't bother growing this one again.


LaRoma Gold:  If you're looking for a super-sweet tomato for canning and sauce, 'LaRoma Gold' would be perfect.  This was a great producer, even though it only received sunshine until about 2pm and then was in shade for the rest of the day.  Note: It rapidly outgrew its caging system and toppled over into a horizontal position, which makes me think that it may be a different golden plum tomato--'LaRoma' is supposed to be a more compact plant.  (In its defense, LRG barely missed a beat during that fall and continues to ripen tomatoes as if nothing happened.)  I'm still undecided as to whether I am growing this again, simply because I prefer "rich" over "sweet" when it comes to tomato sauce.


Great White:  This was a nice tomato--a huge beefsteak that ripened to a creamy ivory color with a hint of yellow and faint pink streaking on the blossom end when ripe. (Note: it somehow looks yellow in the photo above, but ivory is a much better color description.)  'Great White' is definitely a sweeter tomato, but still with a robust tomato flavor.  I saved seeds and will plant this one again next year.


Lemon Boy:  The non-tomato-loving boyfriend's favorite, this tomato is on the sweeter side but with a hint of lemon-y acidity that balanced out the sweet very nicely.  It's a great snacking tomato, and a good size--not as large as a beefsteak, but large enough for good sandwich coverage when sliced.  I'll plant another one of these next year, both for snacking and so that I have a tomato that both of us will enjoy.


Brandywine Red:  I bought 'Brandywine Red' purely because I started to fear that my eclectic tomato choices were a little fancy, and a good solid red tomato might keep me from seeming too elitist.  I'd never grown it before, but I'm now convinced that 'Brandywine Red' is what 99.99% of the population envision when someone says, "tomato."  Deep red, perfectly tomato-shaped, balanced in terms of sweetness and acidity, and having just the right amount of flavor without being "too rich."  I think that BR's might be my new go-to red tomato type.

Red Zebra:  'Green Zebra' tomatoes have a lot of zing... sadly, 'Red Zebra' tomatoes do not.  These were small, heart-shaped tomatoes with pretty streaking, and they would probably look beautiful in salads.  But the flavor didn't do much for me, so I just let Coco have at harvesting them whenever she wanted a snack for herself... and I probably won't bother with them next year.  They were just okay.

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Just so I have everything in one post, I want to say a little something about the cherry tomatoes I grew this year, too.  'White Cherry' was amazingly sweet--like pretty ivory candy tomatoes--and I will probably try to grow two of those next year, just so I have enough of them to snack on in the garden.  'Sungold' packed a lot of zing into tiny, round, golden orange fruits... but somehow they failed to capture my heart.  I think I'll go back to 'Yellow Pear' instead.  'Black Cherry' was my biggest heartbreak, though... the fruits were not very dark and really just reminded me of those grocery store cherry tomatoes in terms of flavor.  Based on internet searches, I'm pretty sure that I either did NOT have a true 'Black Cherry' plant, or that mine came from some inferior strain of the plant... so I'm going to give it another try, from a new source, in 2011.


And with that, I'm off to roast some multi-colored tomato sauce, to help stock the freezer for this coming winter.  If you have any suggestions on tomatoes you think that I might want to try next year, please feel free to leave those in the comments.  I'm always on the lookout for a new, awesome tomato!

And The Thief is Caught!

Steve was on dog duty while I was visiting the other side of the state to see my little brother off... and he sent me this cell phone photo during his morning visit:

Subject line:  "Thief!"

Accompanying message:  "Caught Red-Pawed!"

Yellow-pawed, actually.  That is the first 'LaRoma Gold' to ripen.  I imagine it was delicious.  :)

Running and Shadows

Running has been the theme of this summer.  Not literally--while I have no problems sprinting after an errant pass on the volleyball court, running just for the sake of running is just not in my nature. No, I mean running more in the sense of being always on the go... which I am again today.

The first blooms (ever) are showing up on my passalong brugmansia

So before I start my quick run to my parents' house, to see my brother off on his cross-country trek to his new home in New Mexico, I thought I'd take some time to appreciate the front garden in the morning.  Much of it is cloaked in shadow since it faces west, but those plants that are bathed in sunlight are really set off nicely by the depth of the shadows.

This self-sown portulaca blazes at the foot of the cool 'Black & Blue' salvia, surrounded by purple salvia lyrata

 My 'Black & Blue' salvia is visited by hummingbirds daily

 'Red Rocks' penstemon are supposed to be very touchy in my area, but they (and the sea kale) seem to like my well-draining sandbar of a front garden

 This spring, I replaced a horribly broken lavender with three different 'Acapulco' agastaches --they (like the lavender) still give off a wonderful fragrance when you brush past them, but keep the feel a lot more airy and open

 Looking up from the sidewalk, the "late summer" section of the garden is starting to shine

(Literally, in the case of the 'Golden Sword' yucca)

 The first blooms on my caryopteris are starting to break, and 'Albury Purple' St. John's Wort is offering some new foliage in a nice contrasting color

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On the other side of the caryopteris, the 'Hameln' pennisetum that I failed (again) to move this spring glows like a handful of sparkles in the slanted morning light.

And with that... I'm hitting the shower and then the road.  Hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend!