Ground Cherries & Herbs

With fall's official arrival there is no doubting the inevitable. Yesterday, one of my neighbours picked off all the green tomatoes and pulled her vines. I'll leave mine a while longer. The average day of first frost here is October 9 While it has been cool enough to have the funace on, today is sunny and bright. I did a clean pick this morning yielding a stuffed basket of tomatoes, cucumbers

There's A Fungus Amongst Us

We have a nice little tree on the waterfront. Then I noticed shelf fungus so of course was very interested. Shelf fungus is of the class Basidiomycetes. I haven't indentified the fungus but suffice to say the tree is still living so either this is a symbiotic fungus or parasitic.FungusThe shelf fungus is rather impressive. Once identified, I will know whether it is edible or not. For the

Beefmaster Tomatoes

My husband takes no real interst in gardening but he does help out in the garden. Now about this time of year he starts camping out in the garden waiting very patiently along with the toaster and loaf of bread. I tried to tell him he could pull a few weeds while he's out there but no he is after one thing and one thing only, a beefsteak tomato!BeefmasterThe past couple of years have not been

Large Scale Tomato Harvesting

Tomatoes are big business in our area and are now being harvested daily upto a frost. I thought this would be a rather interesting entry for those who have never seen tomato harvesting on a large scale. The following pictures are from a relative's farm. The pictures were taken on Saturday. It was a cool, damp, on and off rainy day but the harvesting continued.Tomato HarvesterAlthough some

Sunflowers

Sunflowers are so bright and cheery that every garden needs at least one. They attract beneficial pollinators and seed eating birds. The problem I've had is getting them to grow to any size but this year I got a surprise. I've tried planting potted sunflowers but they have always failed so I've come to the conclusion that sunflowers do not transplant well. Over the winter I had birdfeeders out

Garden Happenings

Meconema thalassinum (Drumming Katydid)I've been told when the Katydids start buzzing the summer is almost over. That may be as I'm now into canning tomatoes and the weather has cooled considerable. A Katydid is cricket like but not a true cricket. They make a buzzing sound very different from the sound crickets make. Quite often you can hear their buzzing but seldom see them so I was very

Garden Update

I've been very busy in the kitchen so if you want to check out some of my projects, check my cooking blog, http://momskitchencooking.blogspot.com. I thought I should give some type of a garden update though.Today it is unseasonably cool so I might plant some lettuce later. The tomatoes are fairing despite battling late blight. The one bed is doing a lot better than the other. However, and I'm