Strange Weather with the first Tomato!

Crazy weather is happening everywhere! 

What happened to April showers bring May flowers?

In this wonderful month of May, we have gone from 90 degree weather to the 50's with rain, hail, thunder and lightning!

 I made a mad dash in my flip flops to save some tomato's and other flowers and plants on Sunday. The hail was in full force. I guess it is the closest thing to snow my California backyard garden will ever see! 

I lost 3 Tomato plants, they were simply pummeled by hail! I suppose it is a small thing to lose. But to me sad, starting plants from seed and taking care of them for a couple of months before they are ready for the big kid garden is alot of time and love. Good thing I plan ahead and always double the amount of seeds I start, just in case! Here are some of the pictures I took in my mad dash! They are a little rough, I was trying to protect my camera from the hail!

Russian Persimmon Tomato's

Part of my garden

Lettuce Bed & Chard

Onion, Dill & Herbs

The upside, I may not have seen the first Tomato growing on the vine had I not rushed to save my plants from the hail!

Exciting........ 

Even if my hubby kinda shook his head with a little sly smile murmuring, Crazy Woman! He was kind enough to toss me a towel to dry off, since I now looked like a drowned crazy woman!

Here it is! My first Tomato! It is a Yellow Pear Tomato! 

Yellow Pear Tomato

How are your Tomato's growing?

What Tomato's are you growing?

Happy Gardening Friends!!!

Garden Goodies!

Finally!!!

My First Black Krim Tomato!

 It was so good, we ate it on the spot!

Hansel Eggplants, multiple Beans, Yellow Sunburst Squash, Cucumbers and some Figs from our tree.

Some of what we have picked from the garden in the past couple of days.

We are also getting Shady Lady Tomatos and Orange Cherry Tomatos. We also have Red onion and garlic we harvested. I just forgot to take pictures.

This week I have made Eggplant Parmisian, Fried Squash, Pizza sauce and then we made pizzas using veggies from the garden. Its been a fun week in the garden. The way things are growing and the how much we are harvesting, its time to pull out all the canning stuff and start canning the garden.

So far our total pounds of food from our garden is 12.6 pounds.

How is your garden growing?

Are you harvesting yummy goodness yet?

Happy Gardening my Friends!!!

Attack of the Tomato seedlings!!!

I may have gotten a little Ambitious this year! I am totally cool with growing 72 Tomato plants. Yes, call me crazy. Last year was a dissapointing Tomato season for me and many others. Although, I am not growing them all for me. I am hoping to swap some plants with others and I am selling some to friends and family. Who knows maybe I will make back what I invested, that would be nice. I do plan on growing at least 30-40 in my own Garden. Most of them will make Marinara sauce,salsa, bruschetta, diced and tomato paste to can for the winter months when I am missing fresh garden tomatos.

This weekend I got busy transplanting my seedlings into bigger containers! Since I am recovering from surgery, this was an easy enough job for me to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. I took all my seedlings to the patio table and transplanted away!

I started them in the jiffy pellets that came in thier own little green house. I had great success. I had only 3 tomato plants that did not germinate.

I used a good potting soil with a couple of rabbit poop pellets and got right to work!

As you can see I filled each container with the soil and rabbit poo. I do this in a bigger bucket, this way I dont waste any soil!

It took me about an hour to do all of them. I did bury as much of the stem as possible to get a really good root system started. In about a month, they will all hit the raised beds in the main garden.

I am growing:

Black Krim

Purple Cherokee

Yellow Pear

Sweet 100

Big Boy

Mortgage Lifter

Red Lightning

Heirloom mystery mix

Purple and Green Tomatillos

Paste Tomatos

Black Cherry

Pompeii (Roma Sauce)

Garden Candy Cherry (orange, yellow& red)

I think thats all of them.

I still have to start Beefsteak and Pinapple and Mr.Stripy.

Here are some other things I have growing indoors.

Multiple Peppers, Marigolds to go with my tomatos and cilantro.

Hansel Eggplant which I love!

I have also started many Herbs! That will be a future post!

Happy Gardening!