Ah... the goodness of a ripe, sweet tomato!

A big welcome to Whitney! Thanks for following my blog!

This is the tomato that I've been photographing for weeks now! It's a Rutger variety. The other day it went from reddish... to red. My son Aaron was out inspecting the garden... and picked it! Lucky for me, he brought it in to show me before devouring it!

We each ate half... Oh my goodness... I have never tasted a tomato like that! It was so sweet! Wow!

My Romas are turning red too! Tomato sauce... here I come!

I bought some of those Mrs. Wages packets that Granny's been talking about... want to try the ketchup. Wouldn't that be awesome if my family actually liked it?

My sunflowers are all blooming now! Just love them!

Well... today I'm riping out my green beans.

They didn't hardly produce anything... just looked sickly all the time. The seed I used was old... maybe that was my problem. Gone are my visions of jars of canned green beans lining my pantry shelf... I'll have to go the farmer's market and buy some.... : (

Be gone sickly green beans... make way for a fall planting of broccoli seedlings... and spinach... and lettuce.. and arugula... and ???

Oh, I bought Eliot Coleman's Winter Season Handbook and just started reading it... Ah... visions of cool weather crops gracing my dinner table in the chilly winter.... Hmmmm...

Sunflowers blooming, tomatoes turning RED!

I LOVE Sunflowers!!! Love them!!! Look at this beauty!

And this one... just blooming! Love it!!!!

Oh my gosh... the "side shoots" on my broccoli plants are producing heads BIGGER than the main heads that I enjoyed in July!

I can't decide when to harvest this cabbage. It's a first timer for me! And then... I have to decide what I'm going to do with it!!!

Do you see what I see? Red... well... almost RED! Some of my tomatoes are starting to ripen up! YEAH!!!!

Sorry to be away for a while...

I've been busy mudding sheetrock at our new house.

You can see our new home in the background of the yellow sunflower. I'm working really hard to get a bathroom mudded... primed... and painted so that I can THEN... do the tiling... and hubby can install THE TOILET!

To read more about my other GRAND ADVENTURE, pop on over to that blog. I officially invite you!

Harvest Monday report... carrots... beets... and BER

Oh my gosh, these carrots have been so good! And beet greens... I absolutely love them. As a matter of fact... I have discovered that I LOVE Greens! I also love Swiss Chard (it's my first time eating it! I decided to plant it after seeing how pretty it was on someone's garden blog)... I put it in my chicken noodle garden soup for lunch!

Look... two tomatoes turning red... DARN... BER has struck...

Question Pepper Growers... I bought a 4-pack of jalapeno peppers at the nursery... but 2 of my 4 plants are NOT Jalapeno... What is this beautiful pepper?

Where is my camera??? My Harvest begins slowly...

I am so missing my camera... it's in a bag that I put somewhere... I'm so missing sharing my garden photos with you!!!! Got to find that bag..

Harvest News...

Broccoli... I harvested 4 smallish heads of broccoli the other day. We've eaten two of them in a salad. They taste totally different from store bought broccoli. Milder... Darn... wish that I had planted lots of broccoli so that I could freeze some for the future. Well... hence my garden adventure of learning...

Yukon Golds... I roasted some of the "baby gourmet yukon gold" potatoes that I harvested the other day. They were FANTASTIC!!! Even my son who doesn't particularly care for potatoes, had a second helping! They went perfectly with my beef roast!!!

Leaf Greens... Last night I harvested another basket of leaf greens (my 2nd planting).

Tomatoes... My tomato plants continue to bush out... and have lots of flowers on them! I spied many baby tomatoes last night!!! I'm soooo excited!!!!

Peas... Tender, sweet peas are coming on! We picked some last night to go in the salad... and a few we just popped in our mouths! Aaron said they were good.

Green beans... little beans are appearing! Aaron (age 11) gave them his stamp of approval last night as he nibbled on one!

Strawberries... We're getting to the end of our strawberries. Oh did we enjoy eating fresh, sweet.. and sometimes tart strawberries!!! We got lots this year for the very first time... but jam DIDN'T get made. We just enjoyed eating them fresh too much! As I harvest the last of them, they will go into the freezer for fruit smoothies!

Raspberries... We spied a few red raspberries yesterday. Plop... straight into our eager mouths they went! We want more.... MORE!!!

We're having a terrible time with grasshoppers in the raspberry patch again this year. Guess I'm going to have to buy some DE.

Found it!!! Just found my camera! Yeah... will post photos soon!

More later!!!

I planted some tomatoes today!

It was an absolutely gorgeous day here... the perfect day for gardening!

I'm so excited to report that I've planted some of my tomato plants!

I'm getting a new 4x8 bed ready for more Romas. I have it about 1/2 way filled with Mel's Mix.

Tomatoes in my SFG... spacing... 1 square vs 9 squares

I've been figuring out my spacial needs for my SFG.

I want to can lots of sauce this year... so I have 40 Romas growing from seed.

Mel's book says that bush type or "determinate" tomato plants take 9 square feet! Shoot... that's a lot of space!

Mel says that he only plants vining or "indeterminate" varieties for spacial reasons... vining tomato plants only take 1 square per plant!!!

Vining tomato plants include: Burpee's Fourth of July Hybrid, Early Girl, Celebrity, Beefsteak, Big Boy, Brandywine... Cherry and Heirloom varieties.

more info....

So... I have 40 Romas... bush type... that each need 9 square feet of room... whew... OK... PANIC!!!!