Friday, June 29, 2007

Wolf Peaches

Solanum lycopersicum (means 'wolf peach')

There's red mulch, red supports, red water tubes... all especially for tomatoes, which when ripe, are red. It's my favorite color, too. I began seeing all the red accessories tomatoes could wear in the garden sometime last year and wondered what it was all about. Merely a ploy to dress things up, or was there something more to it?

Turns out,
tomatoes love red. Even when they're green. They aspire to be red, and it seems that red light, when reflected by surrounding red things, will stimulate their growth and production, even if they're exposed to it for just five minutes a day. That's the simple explanation.

Rather than purchase red mulch, I got some red plastic disposable plates and cut a hole in the center for the stem of the tomato plant and secured it at the base with some Earth Staples. So far, I've not seen any improvement in growth over last year, but we're also not experiencing a normal summer - with temperatures or rainfall - so that may account for some of it. But from what I understand, red light is supposed to increase the size and number of tomatoes, so maybe the plant itself won't be any larger.

This summer, we're growing just one plant of 'Mr. Stripey', which as you can guess, is striped! We're growing that one just for fun, and since Romie is the only one who eats fresh tomatoes, one plant will take care of us.

We've also got a few 'Sungold' plants - a cherry tomato known for its sweetness. I first learned of 'Sungold' when reading Stronger Than Dirt by Chris Losee and Kimberly Schaye. It's the story of an urban couple moving to upstate New York and starting their own business growing and selling cut flowers and vegetables. 'Sungold' was a best-seller for them, and I wanted to try them, so I bought some seeds from Kitchen Garden Seeds. Romie concurs - he thinks they're yummy, so I saved seeds from last year's crop and planted them again this year.

Vegetable or fruit?

Now there's a controversial subject. Botanically, the tomato is a fruit, as are cucumbers, pumpkins, eggplant, and zucchini. They're berries, to be precise about it. But we use tomatoes like a vegetable, and for taxation purposes in 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the tomato to be a vegetable. This was an important and necessary action, because U.S. tariff laws apply a duty to vegetables, but not fruits. The USDA recognizes this ruling and classifies the tomato as a vegetable as well.¹

Now you know.

¹Wikipedia: "Tomato"
*Tomato photo from Wikipedia Commons

Quenched Thirst


Just thought I'd share with you. Notice anything?

Oriental Lily (Lilium orientale 'Corrida')


This thing is HUGE, measuring nearly eight inches across.

Watermelon blossom (Citrullus lanatus 'Quetzali')

Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla)

Wood Sorrel (Oxalis regnellii)

Clematis (Clematis 'Avant-Garde')

Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis)

Lupine (Lupinus polyphyllus)

There's RAIN in the heartland!


Thursday, June 28, 2007

Evan Almighty

"Is it too much to ask for a LITTLE PRECIPITATION?"

To Vine Is Divine



They're doing it again.


have watered them every day.



Another vine that I planted this year is Cypress Vine (


This year, I've planted the Cypress

We're playing musical vines!

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

The Great Black Swamp





This is the last week that Romie has off work following


















This was one of the largest trees we saw.

The elderberry bushes were in full bloom.

One of the many ferns in Goll Woods


Zig-zag bark


Pine cones fall where they may...

Lichens were plentiful.

Pine cone mine field

One of the large trees that have been felled by storms



More fungi

A natural allée



Monday, June 25, 2007

A Place in the Sun

Here in zone 5, we divide our outdoor gardening into three parts. There is a fourth, of course, but I'd hardly call it gardening, unless you're lucky enough to have a heated greenhouse, and I'm not. That's not quite the same anyway.

Spring Workout - After a long, gray, cold winter, this is when we are delirious with joy at performing even the slightest chore in preparing our gardens for planting. Just clearing away the debris that accumulated over the previous months gives us satisfaction, because we're doing something.
We pick up speed like snow in an avalanche as we hurtle towards summer, when we'll be rewarded for all the back-breaking and exhausting days we have spent cultivating, planting, transplanting, mulching, watering - well, you know...all that stuff we need to do to help our little lovelies look their best.

Crawling into bed this time of year feels really good.

Summer Fun - Now this is the life! We can breathe a sigh of relief because it's all in the ground, growing, blooming, producing fruit and veggies, and filling the once-bare spaces.

These are the salad days. The reason we garden. Every breath of sweet fragrance from the blooms and the sight of all that color bursting out of the ground makes us smile and our hearts nearly burst from the delight of it.

It's not that there aren't things to do to keep it going, because there's always weeding, deadheading, watering, and garden pests to deal with. But we can at least pace ourselves a little more and not feel like we're in a race to get more done in a day than we really have the time and energy to do.

This is our reward.

Autumn Wind-down - A melancholy time of year, to be sure. In some ways, we're glad to be done with the seemingly endless upkeep that's required of us. We prepare our gardens for bedtime and the needed rest awaiting them. And we need it, too. Though we say we envy those that are able to garden year 'round, we know deep down that we welcome the respite and appreciate spring all the more because of it.

Still, we are sad to see it go. The first frost signals the garden to slow down and prepare to sleep. We hang onto each and every last bloom that comes our way because we know it will be a long time before we see them again.

So we are caught in the middle now, and the middle is a good place to be. It's the time I really
enjoy our garden. I go out into it and sit and really look at it for the sheer beauty of things. There are flowers for cutting so I can bring the joy inside the house, too. And not a day goes by that we don't eat something that we grew.

The birds and butterflies are enjoying our garden now, too. It pleases me that they deem it fit to visit. Some will even take up residence there and raise a family. Our garden - their birthplace.

Every year it seems that summer goes by more quickly than the one before. Sometimes I'll just sit in the warmth of the sun and close my eyes and try to commit to memory how it feels, so when I'm shivering in the winter cold, I can summon the memory of that time. I keep thinking it will warm me and it never really does, but I don't stop trying to make it work.

Just relishing the moment in the sun is worth enough.

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