Hot updates

Wow, it is HOT outside!  

True confessions:  when it gets really hot, my plants start looking like this:

...which makes me depressed to look at them, which makes me not go out there as much, which results in me neglecting my plants somewhat, which just worsens the whole situation.  It's a vicious cycle.

I've told you before about my habit of rapidly cycling through hobbies.  My husband who likes to make overly confident statements predicting my actions has said both that my garden "looks like it's in its dying cycle again" and that he thinks I will likely be "moving on soon from gardening."  ...thanks for the vote of confidence.

While I admit that my garden has looked somewhat ragged recently and I have eyed other interests I am planning on getting into with my new-found free time (namely cooking: I just bought "Cooking for Geeks" and am very excited about it as it approaches cooking from a scientific point of view), I am not intending on neglecting my garden, it's in my blood, people!  I've got a little bit longer, I've got a ways to go! (what a great song!)  So yes, here's some updates...

1. I am pronouncing the heirloom tomato project over, with an overall grade of D (not F because at least it did not die immediately). This is what the tomato looks like today:

*sigh*

I plan to pull it down later this afternoon (when it cools down a bit, my goodness!).  I really wanted to hold out hope.  My parents were here last weekend and helped me prune it and taught me about tapping on the stems with flowers to help stimulate pollination.  But this problem child has looked persistently out of control, Evan has complained persistently about what an eyesore it is, and despite being over 6 feet tall with many chances to have grown tomatoes by now, it has remained barren.  

Today, Evan also received a big bag of home grown tomatoes from someone lovely at work (thanks, Janice!). 

Upon seeing how prolific other people's tomatoes are, I'm saying, better luck next time and fare thee well in tomato heaven, Great White.

2. Not all things are terrible.  Here is a photo from today of the thriller filler spiller pot that I talked about in a recent post.  It looks great!  I will say the filler and spiller look somewhat more distinguishable in real life, but next time I may choose slightly more obviously different plants.  The Muehlenbeckia in particular has grown into a spectacular tangle of delicate little round leaves and the Fuchia has a number of beautiful flowers blooming constantly.

3. Our succulent science experiment is growing well.  Even the Crassula stem that I just tossed in there has sprouted roots and curved upward at the tip.  For comparison, here is the link to that first post.

4.  Actually, all my succulents are growing well.  I love succulents.  Pictured below is my gift succulent I've talked about before.  It's grown!

Also from Janice...  thank you!

5.  And lastly, to overcome this mid-summer gardening death depression, I went shopping today and-- surprise, surprise-- bought a number of new plants which I intend to plant tomorrow.  My sister is also coming to visit the day after tomorrow and her new man is joining next week, and naturally, I want to look like the green-thumbed gardener that I sometimes think that I am. So, lots of new and interesting plants (all heat and drought resistant!).  More later, but here's a preview of an exciting plant I had never seen before:

Ptilotus Joey (with Maidenhair Fern behind it)

And that is all for today.  Stay tuned and stay cool!

Oops, I did it again!

First, a word of wisdom:

On that note...

Oops, I killed a plant!

Soooo, that didn't take long.  I think the problem is too little water for a thirsty plant.  But especially since this has happened to me once before, I have decided that dill may be too fragile for my current gardening abilities (although the other plants are growing like crazy-- the parsley a little too crazy, it's crowding the lavender!  Maybe it's not me, it's you, Dill).

Oops, picked too small of a pot!

Same pot that killed my jasmine! Noooo!!

The rapid growth of my tomato plant was at first exciting.  Until it grew so tall that it started to look disproportionately large for the pot.  So I did some internet research and discovered that for indeterminate tomato plants, the minimum pot size is a 24 inch pot.  "Indeterminate" refers to tomato plants that do not produce all their tomatoes at once (most heirloom tomatoes are indeterminate).  This is in contrast to "determinate" tomato plants that do produce fruit all at once that need a pot at least 18 inches in size.  I don't think my pot is even 18 inches...

And oops, my plants are sick!

Once, a nice worker man at Armstrong Garden Center told me in response to my question regarding a serious pest problem in several of my plants that plants really should not get disease unless they are sick.  "That's mean," I thought, "my plants are not all sick."  The string of pearls succulent (with the mildew) could be a little stressed -- I just repotted it recently and it was looking a little tired beforehand.  But the parsley??  (The whitefly are the tiny little white specks.)  Hopefully it is not anything a little Neem oil cannot fix.

Here's another picture of whitefly, closeup (source from this informative site):

Actual size = 1-3mm each

I hope the whitefly do not become a problem -- last year, they got really out of control to the point that I couldn't stand next to my poor plant without feeling like I was going to inhale a swarm of them...

Well, on the upside, yes, I referenced a Britney Spears song today-- for any haters out there, I will just say she and I grew up together, not literally, and her music videos spawned a thousand late night dance routines in front of my mirror.  Mostly in college.  They were happy moments.

The little things

Here's the things that are making me happy this week.

The first meyer lemon bloom of spring:

The incredible speed with which my heirloom tomato plant is growing:

About 3wks ago

Now

Delicious blueberries (which I promptly ate):

An unexpected gift succulent (thank you, Janice!):

And today, I spent most of the day gardening :)  Happy Saturday!

The Heirloom'd Tomato

I love heirloom tomatoes.  I think they are delicious.  And they sound fancy.  Thus, despite the fact that my husband hates tomatoes and literally gags when he eats them, I am very excited about one of the newest additions to my garden:  an heirloom tomato plant of the "Great White" variety.  I hope it produces lots of heirloom tomatoes, all for me.

I am particularly excited because every description I have read about the Great White heirloom tomato calls it an "almost perfect" tomato (whatever that means) with a delicious "creamy texture" (also a weird description for a tomato plant).  I chose it because of its "near perfection" (that sounds pretty good) and because the tomatoes will be smaller than some of the other varieties available like "Brandywine."  Plants with smaller tomatoes do better in pots than the larger tomato'd varietals.  The Great Whites are still pretty big, up to a pound, so I don't know if that counts as small, but some of the other types have 2lb tomatoes (I hear Evan gagging in the background).  

Anyway, here is Great White in its prepubescent state:

I hope the pot that killed Jasmine doesn't kill you too...

A bigger and more interesting question than "are heirloom tomatoes awesome?" (A: yes) is "why go heirloom?"  What is the difference between heirloom tomatoes and "regular" tomatoes?  

Well, there was a fascinating recent article in the New York Times about the science behind it.  About 70 years ago, tomato breeders discovered a mutation that caused tomatoes to have a uniformly red color to them.  Because of the commercial appeal of this, they bred this mutation widely into tomatoes and now pretty much all tomatoes that you see in the store have this gene.  What they didn't know at the time was that this mutation disabled chloroplasts, creating a more uniform color, but these chloroplasts were responsible for sugar production.  Reducing the sugar production (by 20%) resulted in less flavorful tomatoes.  

So heirloom tomatoes produce a bit less fruit and may be more susceptible to disease than newer varieties which are bred to be advantageous in those regards... But heirloom tomatoes lack the aforementioned gene mutation, and as a result, are tastier...

Omg.  Isn't your mouth just watering?  (The above is a recipe with burrata from TheKitchn, which is a great blog).

So with any luck, in approximately 85 days with some sunshine and water and TLC, I will soon have delicious near perfect creamy tomatoes that look like this:

(photo from gardenharvestsupply.com)

Wish me luck, I cannot wait!