Tomato Garden Follies

At the end of year 6 of the Transplantable Rose blog, what better way to start year 7 than with tomatoes? We like peppers and tomatoes. We like growing them and we like eating them. I even wrote lyrics about the end of Tomato season for a music video called Farewell, Tomato.

After Philo made our small vegetable plot in 2004 we tried different ways to support & protect the plants.  

For a few years we just staked them

Our next phase lasted a few years - a large, strong, painted wooden framework that could support plants, bird netting & shade cloth. We hoped the net could slow down attacks by squirrels & birds.

It’s been fun trying new varieties every year, cramming in 9 or 10 tomato plants and 7 or 8 peppers, watering them by hand while knocking leaf-footed stink bugs into soapy water every day, with the reward of some salad tomatoes and frying peppers.

A post on GardenWeb suggested tying net gift bags over the tomatoes to protect them from the stinkbugs. I was too cheap to buy more than 2 – a good thing since the squirrels chewed off the whole tomato stem & ran away with the bags.

On Tom Spencer’s radio program we heard him mention one gardener who painted wooden balls red & hung them in the garden while the tomatoes were green. The idea was that any critter attacking the fake tomatoes would be convinced that hard, bad tomatoes grew in that garden. We tried it and saw no effect, but at least they’re decorative! 

Recent years broke the weather rules and what worked before no longer held up.  Last summer after every pepper plant in the vegetable garden died, I found a few new plants at a local nursery, put them into containers and those survived. The bird netting kept the birds from taking the tomatoes, but it allowed them to poke their beaks through the spaces to puncture the tomatoes.

 

The tomato frame filled the entire center of our little plot, making it difficult to get in to weed, prune & tie the plants and even harder to reach the stinkbugs. The stakes & frames gave the birds a good place to perch while they attacked the fruit. But we gardeners had no place to perch - the seat made from a slice of tree trunk had rotted.  

So we tweaked the vegetable plot, moving the compost enclosure and changing the layout. A central path looks better and gives us better access. There are fewer plants this year. Five pepper plants grow in containers and we’re getting a small, steady supply. We bought only 5 tomato plants and we’re getting a few of those each day, too.

The tomato vines are sort of draped over wire cages to hold the fruit off the ground but they’re not staked. In place of the garden netting I bought a few yards of inexpensive nylon net to sort of pouf over the top, using recycled bricks to keep it from blowing away. With a tighter weave and no convenient sticks for birdie feet to grasp, they have to work harder to punch holes in the tomatoes. 

They can still do it… our Blue Jays boldly cling to the kitchen windows and tap on the panes! The squirrels will chew through anything and possums and raccoons lurk at night. We know we can’t beat any of them but we're trying to stay in the game. 

If a stinkbug lands on the outside of the net it can’t fit through the small mesh. If the little monster is already inside clinging to the net I use the net to enfold & squish it.

A central path now leads to the concrete bench, relocated from the Secret Garden to the Vegetable Patch. Last June we turned two old compost bins upside down, painted them, added handles and called them tomato guards. This June they cover two tubs bought at some long ago garage sale, painted white. The tub on one side of the path has a pepper plant and a ‘San Marzano’ tomato grows on the opposite side. There’s something going on here but it doesn’t fit the usual categories… it’s not Potager and it’s not Austintatious and it’s not Garden Junk. Maybe it’s Transplanted Frugal Midwesterner?  

Two of the tomatoes were supposed to be our favorite ‘Black Krim’. At planting time I noticed a ‘Better Boy’ tag down the side of the pot. And that one ‘Black Krim’ has now turned to None. Look at these tomatoes! They all came from the same mislabled plant – not ‘Black Krim’ but it might take a tomato-genealogist to figure out what they are.

On the other hand, when that heirloom-lumpy tomato at far right finally ripened, it weighed in at over 13 ounces. Folly it may be, but what a delicious folly it was. 

A Three Sisters Bloom Day for May 2012

 This post was written by me, Annie in Austin, for my Transplantable Rose Blog.


Philo and I enjoyed the flowers that bloomed here on the 15th but May 15th was not my target date this month. The truly important date came a few days later when my sisters popped in from Illinois for a long weekend. They really came to visit our Austin family, not to see plants, but I still wanted the garden to shine.

Josie and Hannah have visited Austin before but only in fall. This time my gardening sisters and I would have our own special Garden Bloom Day for May. Some favorite plants didn't cooperate... 'Julia Child' rose had just finished a bloom cycle and it's too early for the 'Acoma' crepe myrtles

 

but a few Magnolia buds looked promising

 

We planned on meeting other family members at local restaurants for some meals but in a pre-houseguest tizzy I also cooked old favorites like Shredded Chicken with Peppers and baked a Cheesecake. Philo and I could hardly wait for our beloved guests to arrive! 

The front-garden greeting committee included the Mutabilis Rose. This enormous shrub rose used to be in shade by mid-May, but since the recent demise of Arizona Ash #2, it's still in sun and has continued to bloom.

Although Hesperaloe is called Red Yucca, it sure looks fluorescent pink to me. That's why this native relative of asparagus grows in the Pink Entrance Garden with Cherry Skullcap at its feet. Things would have been even more gaudy but the 'Belinda's Dream' rose behind the Hesperaloe was Resting Between Engagements.

The Vitex agnus-castus/Chaste tree caught Josie's eye as she went to the veranda steps. It had started to open over the weekend, the shrub resembling the unrelated Butterfly bushes while the color and shape of the blooms look a little like lilacs.
Like many plants here, the look of the flower draws you to smell it, but Vitex flower heads have only a vaguely herby-meadowy smell rather than a scent worth making into perfumes. 

In a similar way you can be drawn to the beauty of many Salvias while being repelled by the funky smell. Mexican Mint marigold flowers are not as beautiful as salvias, but the foliage smells better in an inside vase.    

For more than 50 years a peony that once grew in my grandmother's garden has been divided and shared around the family. In Illinois, Peonies and Lilacs rule the month of May with both color and fragrance but they can't live here so I had to leave them behind.
Luckily, Grandma's peony still blooms in the gardens of my sisters and cousins. My sister Hannah cut three flowers that were just beginning to show petal color and tucked them into her suitcase. I recut them and put them in water, and the first one opened two days later. 

My sisters' daylilies bloom at the end of June and during July, but in Austin they flower in late April and May. The old-fashioned orange daylily bloomed with Larkspur in April but by the time my sisters came it was done and the larkspur was going to seed. 'Devonshire' had open flowers, with purple-blue supplied by Mealy blue sage.

 

I brought 'Prairie Blue Eyes' to Austin with me in 1999 and it still looks good. 

 

A passalong daylily from Pam Penick, 'Best of Friends', was having a spectacular year - nine stems with 8 huge flowers open at once

 The dwarf 'Vi's Apricot' daylily had been blooming for weeks, a passalong from a friend in Illinois. My sisters took divisions of this little flower home to plant in their gardens - even though Vi can no longer garden, her special plant will keep on blooming.

My sisters saw the buds of the citron daylily - the original plant didn't live through summer 2011 but I'd moved a small division near the house. One flower opened yesterday.

The Cenizo/Texas sage had popped some flowers - today it's covered in blooms

Hannah & Josie liked the 'Red Cascade' climbing mini-rose mixed into the Rosemary

They liked the two-tone flowers of 'Hot Lips' salvia

 

 

  

They wondered how tropical milkweed would do in Illinois

And liked the pure light blue of Plumbago with Purple oxalis

They were here when the Hydrangea x Bliss 'Sweet Carol' bloomed for the first time since 2008.

They got to see dwarf pomegranates forming

 and to see small Meyer's lemons growing on the tree behind the house

The garden was full of birds this week - we watched them from the breakfast room and in the garden- here's a white-winged dove herding a fledgling under cover

And before they left, they encountered a genuinely lovely Southern scent - Magnolia blossoms on the 'Little Gem' tree.

 

We had a wonderful time but the few days went by in a blur - the entire family group liked Trudy's patio

 But all too soon they were rolling the suitcases away 

Now it seems like summer instead of May... yesterday we got the first tomatoes of 2012. 

This post was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog... probably much too late for the roundup of GBBD posts by May Dreams Carol 

Ed May 25, 2012. The complete list is now up at Annie's Addendum. 

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day August 2011

My original intention was to ignore May Dreams Garden's GBBD for this month - here in Austin we've had 62 days over 100 degrees F - just a few days from the record. Rain is just a memory and the few plants with flowers seemed to be the same ones that appeared in July - so what was the point? But then on Saturday a Texas Star Hibiscus that I'd been babying along rewarded me with one bright red flower

I stubbornly held out... then this morning I noticed an open flower on a Stapelia gigantea plant that I'd moved to a semi-sunny spot on the patio. I took the pot to the patio table for a closer look - not just one flower but with 2 more budsI couldn't ignore this! My current herd of Stapelia plants descend from one given to me by my Aunt Phyllis over 20 years ago. "Herd" may not be the official collective noun for Stapelia, but doesn't it seem appropriate for members of the Milk-weed family? Stapelias are container plants here - our winters will kill them if they're left outside. Carrion flower is another name - the meaty scent draws flies.

The Blue Butterfly clerodendron bloomed for July GBBD - but the BLUE is a transient characteristic now, rather than a permanent attribute. Look how bleached the blooms become in this intense sun: The little annual native Zinnia linearis (or if you prefer, Zinnia angustifolia) have been in bloom only because I handwater them. The grass is not so lucky.I also water a container of 'Sun Gold' tomatoes - soaking it well every day. The runoff seeps into the ground, ending up in the roots of the native Sunflower just below the container, keeping the flowers and seedheads in production for the finches.
A similar relationship has developed under this not-quite-established 'Zuni' crepe myrtle, put in last winter with hopes it will someday shade the breakfast room windows. I planted a 'Mexico Midget' tomato under the young tree so watering one waters both.

Keeping the Sunflower and Crepe Myrtle alive means keeping the tiny tomato plants alive & keeping the tomatoes alive means I get a small handful of little tomatoes a couple of times a week. They're very tart and go especially well in tuna salad. The heat means I refill birdbaths and saucers at least once - usually twice- a day. I've been diligent about watering other plants with flowers that are not just decorative, but are important to wildlife. The bees need flowers like the tiny pink & lilac blooms on this Cuphea
Usually my assorted collection of tubular red and blue Salvias keep blooming most of the summer, but this year some Salvias have bailed and others refuse to bloom at all. Some extra water coaxed the Mexican Honeysuckle into taking up the slack as a nectar source for the hummingbirds.
If you think things have gone to the birds around here, you're right! The lawn is toast, the vegetable garden abandoned, and even the cooking sage may have croaked, but I won't give up trying to keep my friends with wings alive.
For a complete list of what's in bloom with botanical names go to my Annie's Addendum blog. To see the GBBD posts of other gardeners go to May Dreams Gardens.