What have you done today in the Garden?

Went to see my friend Marion and Barry, we went to our other friend Geoffrey's house and i planted 2 lupins and did some weeding. I hope that the lupins survive, the other one i planted last year didn't but i did it in the summer, last year it was a very hot summer.

 

Daniel—Glorious Verbascum, mate.
Wow, you have got the toms! Do you process them with their skins on?
I absolutely love the looks of that blackberry pie. Man, oh man—looks so delicious.
The Bride and I really liked that airy “scarecrow”. I imagine that it is effective but it is the coolest gardening bit of kit on your block.
Such a good posting, this one.

 

That verbascum was from seed sown this winter. I was surprised they bloomed this year. Every time I look, honeybees are browsing the flowers!

Lots of peppers today. Some went into today's salsa.




Mini dahlias are more prolific than I expected. Bees like those flowers too!
I wonder if the tubers can over-winter in the garage?



Bumblebees also like the big type of dahlia flowers.



Honeybees like the hummingbird feeder even better.



I'm starting to pull onions for cooking.
These are Red Wethersfield, an heirloom type that I grew from seeds. When sliced, they have a strong, tear-inducing onion aroma. I like this smaller size, better than the gigantic onions at the grocery store.



Those tomatoes from the earlier post, went into tomato sauce. Answering your question Sjoerd, I don't skin them. The food processor purees them into puree, with no noticeable skin. I think they add to the nutrition.



Celosia are starting to bloom. Another "I've never grown this before" plant.



This is the hardy kiwi vine that I bought this Spring. I was grousing about how puny and possibly dead it was. Yesterday was its second repotting. I used some willow twigs as a climbing support. It likes the current hot weather.



Today I spent four hours making and canning salsa. For that, I did skin the tomatoes. I have to be honest. The new hybrid sauce tomatoes, "Supremo", were much larger, heavier, and prolific, compared to my heirloom Romas. As it turned out, they also skinned much more easily, and cooked better too. So much for my attitude that heirloom is better! I also used onions, garlic, and peppers from my garden, but the lemon juice was from the grocery store.

 

Daniel, my grandpa used to store my grandma's dahlia tubers in the wash house. It was connected to the back wall of the garage. But the garage wasn't connected to the house. Maybe that's like storing in a garage? Do they have a hybrid kiwi? I thought you needed a male and female plant for them.
A couple more days and I'll be freezing spaghetti sauce. I should have enough tomatoes by then. I have no idea what kind of tomatoes I have. I ended up with 5 plants that I didn't plant. They came up from seeds in my compost. I planted a black cherry tomato and that was it!

 

We were interested about those skins. We have had probs with them when we used to process them with a passe vite and later a staff mixer. Our problem was that when we used the staff mixer, the skins were ground small alright, but then the consistency was not thick enough for us. Haha never satisfied. So now my Bride boils them, I pull pull the skins off.
It is a shame though, because you are 100% correct about the taste and nutritional value of the skins.
How exactly do you process your toms?
Your stuff looks nice and thick in those ziplock baggies. How do you get it so nice and thick?

The Celosia is a remarkable plant with a unique flower head. The first time I saw these was about twenty years ago in the Generalife gardens of the Alhambra in Spain. Since then I have seen them in different colours, but the red ones like yours are what I remember. We call them, “Rooster Comb Plant”. Ahhh, the memories.

Your peppers are looking good, as are the little dahlias. What about the honeybees! Now is the time of year that honeybees go a little mad with harvesting for the winter. I mean REALLY mad. They even will invade weak colonies and fight for and steal their winter supplies. I always had to be careful with that.

Super bumblebee foto. We are almost ready to do our onions and toms, looking forward to your tom comments.

 

Willow, those tomato plants from the compost sounds delightful! How is the black cherry tomato?

I'm just thinking ahead on the little dahlias. Your grandpa did what mine did too. I might just store them in their current container and potting soil. Winter is still a long way away, but I like those little dahlias. They were on sale outside Winco, droopy in the hot sun. All they needed was re-planting and TLC.

Most kiwis need make and female. I have a ten year old fuzzy kiwi that has never bloomed. This plant is a hardy kiwi. The fruit are the size of grapes. The box label said, no make needed. Who knows if that is true!

Enjoy your spaghetti sauce! Home grown is the best!

 

Sjoerd, I just wash and slice the tomatoes, put them into a big pot, cover, and slowly boil them. I simmer at a mild boil and keep the lid slightly ajar for steam to escape, stirring about every fifteen minutes. I let them boil down to lose about half their volume.

Then I let them cool completely. I process them in a food processor until nicely pureed.

I think the food processor matters. This pone is an old Cuisinart with a newer blade. I had another brand that left pieces of skin. I don't know if it helps to process them cold, but I do.

I was never able to raise honeybees. That was a disappointment. I think mine were killed off by yellow jackets.

 

Mowed the lawns yesterday and the back one demonstrated that it needed of a bit of scarifying.
I'd done it in the spring, but it was time to do it again, whilst the grass is still growing. I'll give it a feed in a few days.




I took more than half a green bin-full off it with my forty-year-old Black & Decker scarifier. (I did give it a service first, a bit of oil and grease and a check of the belt).

I then went over it with my aging Flymo Ultraglide mower. This has a big fan behind the blade and has a wider diameter, so it's as good at collecting grass as it is mowing. I hade to replace the switch a few weeks ago as it had stopped working. It's far better than the new 360 Flymo I bought for the front garden, to save me from having to carry the much heavier one round. The new one throws the grass everywhere and collects very little. But it's a tiny lawn so I'm not bothered.


The lawn's looking dog rough at the moment, but it'll have recovered in a couple of weeks. I just beat the rain!




The riddle is protecting a bit I had to patch, something had started to dig a hole.

 

Harvested 2 bags of potatoes. And I guess they don't need to bloom. Well, unless these are the two that did bloom. They are grown in 10 lbs potato bags. These are Blackberry (on the tarp) and Huckleberry Gold ( in the containers). We'll harvest more as they die down. My Daughter-in-law and son like to help so I do it with them and split the harvest. My son is at a conference out of town this weekend so he'll come over, probably Tuesday, and we'll harvest more.

 

Daniel, the black cherry tomato is doing good, it's loaded. But I've only gotten maybe 5 or 6 ripe ones.
I was looking at MIGardener this morning because all his seeds are 50% off right now. I did find some ground cherries, which are in my cart even as we speak. I love his videos too. He doesn't just tell you what to do, he also says why.
Woah! Just glanced over to George's cage and his hood has come off! He's shedding. That'll be a nice big one under the microscope for the kids.
it's suppose to be a hot one today and it's already getting there. I probably won't be outside much more today, until it cools down.

 

Thanks Daniel, How long(minutes) do you let your toms boil down then? Every year our tom sauce is thicker or thinner. I suspect that it has to do with the tom sorts that we try out each time. Maybe we are not boiling the toms not long enough.

What a shame that your bees did not do well. Do you think you will ever try them again?

 

That's a good question. I just keep going until the volume is down by half. Maybe 90 minute or two hours? Im not sure.

Are you using sauce tomato varieties? They are much less watery than the others. Also, I use determinate types, so most ripen within a two or three week window.

I don't think i'll try bees again. I tried a few times. It was a really exciting thing to do.

I wonder whose hive is getting all of the nectar from my garden.

 

Wow, black potatoes!

 

The flesh is actually purple, the outside just looks black. The huckleberry gold are a really pretty reddish plum color with yellow flesh. My granddaughter took the huckleberry picture. She did a good job.
That's good to know about the simmering time. I have no idea what type the volunteer tomatoes are. Some are shaped a little like a Roma but more flat. So once I start cutting them for the spaghetti sauce I'll find out just how liquidy they are.

 

Tied up the gladioli, put some wood ash on the lillies and then some old compost, then deadheaded the cosmos,roses and snapdragons.