So... Now What?

As my first season of gardening comes to a close, I find myself asking the question, "So... Now what?"  I know that I would like to continue gardening through the fall, but I'm not sure how.  What are some things I can grow and when do I plant them?  Can anyone help me?  If I wait to see it on your blogs, it probably won't be until the plants are in the ground and then it will be too late for me...

Oh no! Am I too late already?!?

Anniversary Plans Update

I really want to thank everyone for the anniversary ideas. I have decided to surprise Shawn with a trip to skibowl! If you don't live in the pacific northwest you have probably never heard of skibowl. Skibowl is a ski area in the Winter, but in the Summertime they open it up as an adventure park.

They have horseback riding, land luge, zip lines, go karts, and all kinds of other great activities! They are only about 45 minutes away from Portland, but I have never been. Shawn went one time in high school and he loved it so much that he is still talking about it.

I really wanted to take him out there for the weekend, but I won't have the money to bool a place until payday. I didn't know it, but our anniversary weekend is the same weekend as Oktoberfest. If I could afford a hotel room or a cabin we could do both! Hopefully they don't all book up before payday!!

I Want to Plan an Anniversary Surprise!

My 6th wedding anniversary is 3 1/2 weeks away and I want to plan something really nice for my husband. We have been together for almost 12 years, (we were high school sweethearts) and so our wedding anniversaries have never been celebrated as something special. For the last 5 years we have ordered pizza and watched a movie at home.  Sometimes we go out to eat on the weekend after, but it's never anything too extravagant.

I want to do something really special for Shawn this time.  6 years isn't typically made a very special celebration for most people because it isn't a milestone.  The number of years isn't super special to me, but the guy I'm married to totally is.  Shawn has been working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for over 4 months now. I would love to take him somwhere that he can relax and be away from work for a while.

Here is an incomplete list of some things that I think Shawn would like to do

1. Swim with Sharks
2. Helicopter Rides
3. Hot Air Balloon Rides
4. Dune Buggies
5. Jet Skis

As you can see, Shawn is into experiences.  As you may know by my refusal to purchase tomato cages, I am into saving money and being frugal.  I'm looking for something that is going to keep us both happy.  Any ideas?

Fried Green Tomatoes

I'm very excited because last night was the first time that I ate some of my tomatoes. Yes, they are green. I've been very open with the fact that the only reason I chose beefsteak tomatoes is because I think they make the best fried green tomatoes. They get nice and big before they turn red and they have a great tart flavor that goes great with the seasonings in the batter.

My tomatoes turned out great! They were so tasty and perfect. I think that next time I will wait for the tomatoes to get a little bigger before i fry them up, but just because then I will have more tomato to eat! Yum!

The napkin says fresh fit, and while these were as fresh as it gets, they are definitely not fit!

Timeline of My Mom's Critters

When my mom started her garden about 4 years ago, little birds started visiting her yard. So she got a bird feeder.



Little squirrels started raiding the bird feeders. She wanted to keep them out but she didn't want them to be hungry. So, she started putting peanuts out for the squirrels.

The blue jays flew away with all of the peanuts. So, my mom put the peanuts in a squirrel feeder.



Buy mom didn't want the blue jays to be hungry so she started putting pieces of dog food out for them.

Raccoons started coming around to eat the dog food that was set out for the blue jays. So, my mom started putting cat food out on the other side of the house for the raccoons.



One particularly hot day, the farmer's cows wandered very near to my mom's back fence. Worried that it was too hot for them to make it back to the creek to drink, she put out a bucket of water for them.

After the cows went home and the sun started to go down, coyotes came out and found the water and drank it. Now my mom has a permanent coyote drinking station outside of her back gate.



Perhaps next time I will write about how she came to have this many cats.

Makeshift Tomato Support

I knew that my tomatoes needed support and I knew I didn't have much time. As prepared as it sounds like I was, I wasn't. Today I found a beefsteak tomato dangling perilously close to the ground. I knew if I waited one more day it would be too late.

I never did get around to breaking down and buying those tomato cages. I was ill prepared and I had to act fast. I took some twine and tied them as best as I could around a post for my porch.







It's not pretty, but neither is the rest of my first-time garden. I've been I'll prepared from the get-go, so this fits right in. Whatever, it works.




This is the tomato that I saved from the ground. And guess what that thing poking out of the ground is. It's a WEED. Again?! Yes! Don't worry though, I promptly ended its life before it grew to be 3 feet tall.

I also checked in on Yummy, my first tomato. He is doing well. He's getting big and is probably ready to to turn red any day now.




Oh! TOMATO QUESTION!!!
How big do beefsteak tomatoes get before they turn red? I want to be sure I pick mine nice and green so I can fry them up, but I also want to let them get as big as possible! The bigger the tomater, the more fried green tomaters for me!

Bean!

Simething fantastic appeared today! I didn't even know this bean was growing because for some reason it was droooped inside of the pot. I was so thrilled to see it!

I checked on the tomatoes as well. I forgot to water them yesterday which was deviating for the patio tomatoes since they are in a container. They were looking pretty sad and wilted. I felt bad for them but it isn't anything that a little tlc can't fix.

Despite not bring watered the actual fruit looks really good. I'm not sure how big the patio tomatoes are going to be, but it's the beef steaks that I'm really after anyway. Since they are in the ground they didn't even notice my absence from the garden yesterday. I'm excited about how much they are growing. I can't believe it's nearly mid August and I am just now starting to see this kind of action in the garden!

Great news about the banana pepper, it had made a late season, but full recovery and is back in the game. Los if little blossoms which will hopefully turn into peppers soon.

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Tomato Cages

My beefsteak tomatoes are getting bigger and taller everyday. It won't be much longer until they are going to need extra support. I'm not quite sure what I am going to do about that...

I know the obvious solution is a tomato cage. Here is the main obstacle in that plan; I don't want to spend the money on it. I bought a cage for my patio tomato for 0.99 at Wilco in Battle Ground. The cages for the larger tomato varieties were a few dollars more.

Being too cheap to spend a few dollars, I am looking for an alternative. I planted my tomatoes near a post on the corner of my porch. I was hoping that I would be able to use some twine to tie the plants to the post. Now that it's come time to take action, I'm not too sure it's going to work out.

My mom suggested that I use some trimmed branches from a tree in my yard to create a teepee type support. Sounds like a great idea, but I don't think that I have limbs the correct size. My instincts tell me that there has to be another way!

Pretty Pollinators

I've learned a lot this gardening season. The importance of pollinators and attracting them being near the top of the list. My original gardening plan wad to stick a plant in the ground and let nature take it's course. After reading so many gardening blogs about manually pollinating plants, I think I'm ready to change my game plan.

At the beginning of this gardening season I would pass by the flower section of the nursery. After all I wanted to eat my garden. Why would I waste my time, space, and money on flowers? Well, now I get it!

I left a strip of clover in my yard because I noticed a couple of honeybees. When I finally mowed them down, it was apparent that word had spread! There were dozens of honey bees swirling around my lawn mower! I was very pleased to see them and let an area of clover in my front yard alone so they would continue to come around.

I was lucky this year. Next year, I might be one of those that I have been reading about who are trying desperately to get their plants to mingle. So I have another thing to add to my lost of things that I will do differently next year.

Next year I going to also plant flowers to attract pollinators. But why stop there? Why not attract something pretty to look at - and many something without a stinger as well? I have decided that hummingbirds and butterflies are going to be my main focus as far as my flowers go next year. Hopefully I will still have the same hive of bees stopping by and the other pollinators will just be a bonus.

I have to admit that I did decide on the butterflies when I took s picture.





Lovely, isn't it? Caleb loved chasing it around the garden. Perhaps next year I will have a whole swarm of them!!

Weeding: Sector Two

Well I did a little more weeding today. I think the weeds from Sector One gave a heads up to the weeds in Sector Two because the weeds today were vengeful! They all seemed to sprout thorns overnight!

The last time that I weeded there were a few throng plants. It wasn't anything that my gardening gloves couldn't handle. I just grabbed onto them, ripped them out of the ground and tossed them aside. This time the thorns poked right through my gloves! Then they held on were they were! I had to pull dozens of tiny prickles out of the fabric of my gloves.

I did the rest of the weeding with a rag and a glove. That seems to have done the trick. Sector Two is a very small section of the yard, but it was definitely the worst! With these two areas done, over half of the work load is complete. There are 3 more areas that need weeding, but they aren't very bad so I think it will be pretty easy to tackle them! The end is in sight!!

Ants!

I was in the garden with Captain and Caleb today and we all noticed something new. Ants. Big ones. They were crawling all over the tree that Captain usually perches in.

Caleb was so excited! We got him an ant farm as a gift last Easter. The original ants hadn't been in there very long before he emptied them in his room and they were vacuumed up. I am not sure if ants are beneficial or harmful in the garden, but what I am sure of is that this ant farm was $20.00 and it's going to get some use, gosh darn it!

So we collected the ants and stuck them in the freezer for about 10 seconds to calm them down. Then I dumped them into the ant farm and there you have it! Farmer ants from my garden. At least somebody is farmin' out there!