August 6, 2008

Wow, I can't believe it. My BROTHER, the gardener, is taking gardening advice from little ol' me!?!  Today he accepted my take on his potatoes dying as a bad sign due to his black garbage can providing too much heat for the cool loving potatoes.  And then, then! he asked me to check out his cuke flowers to tell him which were male and female.  I was floored, but I kept my cool and checked.  He had way too many males and not many females.  Odd. I told him to wait a few weeks for the females to grow and bloom, then tickle their fancy.  Ah, it's good to learn.

Speaking of cukes, my biggest ones are looking a bit ready to pick, especially if they're pickling cukes.  What do you think?


This one's a bit flat and fat, but I hope that doesnt' impact it's taste.  This one would be for slicing for salads.



This one looks JUST like a pickle.  But I don't want to pick it too early or too late.  Boy is gardening fun but hard.

And what goes with cucumbers?  Tomatoes! Here is a pic of my tomato plants...



As you can kind of see, the leaves that curled way back when due to me not knowing how much water huge tomato plants needed.  But what is now happening is the lower leaves are looking a bit wilty.



I checked the backs and found nothing, but it's almost looking like insect damage.  And some of the flowers look like they didn't pollinate and died.  It's been hot lately, but I thought tomatoes liked hot?  Oh, did I mention that we had another of our 7 86+degree days today? Of course, the plant is still producing tomatoes left and right. And what do my eyes see? Is it first blush?



Of course it's tiny, but most of my tomatoes lack heft.  Hehe, and Chrissy, my garden buddy in NY wanted to bet me on the biggest tomato after she tricked me into betting her on the first ripe tomato knowing her climate was head and shoulders above mine.  Here's a slightly bigger one that's not far behind the first one.



As for my blueberries, the Blueray is ready, but the other one, my evergreen isn't close.  I guess that's a good thing so I have an early and late season variety.  They taste a bit bitter. I wonder if it's because I need more acidic soil?

Finally, my corn cobs are still tiny, and some of the silks are dying, which I think means they're almost done. I sure hope they aren't mini-corns...

Well, that's about it for me.  Enjoy your garden!