Almost Wordless Wednesday

{100-degree heat yesterday. This is what the plants looked like when we got home.}

{Heart shaped tomato (sort of)}

{Bee on a Black Krim blossom}

{Cucumber plants bursting through fence}

{six bush bean seedlings instead of the five I originally thought}

{Zucchini and yellow squash on the vine}

First Cucumber Harvest! and Kitten Update

Over the weekend we harvested our first cucumbers!

These cucumbers are in the small 10x2 plot in the ground. We also have some growing in containers but those haven't developed fruit yet.

We harvested a handful of onions from the bulbs we planted early in the spring. These were also in the ground. I'd say this ain't too shabby for our first time growing onions. They smell delicious!

We also harvested a few early girl and grape tomatoes, as well as some yellow squash and broccoli (not pictured because we ate it). I saved these containers from produce I bought from the farmers' market a few months ago. It's great for storing these small harvests.

KITTEN UPDATE!!!

This is one of the few pictures I have of all five foster kittens. They love sleeping on the bathtub like this. They're doing well--very playful, eating well, gaining weight, etc. Two of the boys are big enough to get neutered this week, and then it's on to the adoption room for them. I'll probably only have the rest of them for another week or two. I would love to take each one individually out onto the deck so they can be in the garden, hear noises, smell different things, etc., but the paranoid part of me is worried about compromising their health in some way. I attended a kitten care workshop over the weekend that, quite frankly, scared the crap out of me! That sounds a bit dramatic (these were strays, after all), but the instructors did present worst case scenarios in terms of diseases and parasites that can affect kittens in your care. I would feel so horrible if something bad happened to any small creature that is in my care, and heaven forbid anything should happen to my own little pet cat. I think they told one story too many of a kitten suffering from burn marks from being left on a hot concrete sidewalk, so no hot deck for them. The kittens are sweet little animals; I hope they find their way to loving and responsible families.

Do you have any pets? I'd love to hear about them.

The 2011 Tomato List

July usually marks the point where we being harvesting tomatoes fairly regularly.  To date, we've harvested a handful, but there is still more green on the vines than red. Below I've compiled a list of the tomato varieties we're growing, and indicated whether we bought them as plants from a nursery or started them from seed. All are in containers:

Bush Early Girl - Everybody seems to be familiar with this variety.  We bought these as plants from a garden center. They're great for containers and ripen early in the season, which is great for an impatient tomato lover. We've harvested a handful of these already, and there are many more on the vine in various shades of pink/red.

Black Krim - This is a new tomato we're growing this summer, and we started it from seed. I posted pictures of a few weird looking Black Krims that have formed, but I do have quite a few normal looking ones too.  According to the seed packet, "the Heirloom Black Krim Tomato is one of the oldest varieties of Black Tomatoes.  It originated on the isle of Krim in Russia.  They are extremely dark in color and have a slightly salty taste. "

Tiny Tim and Oregon Spring - These are two new varieties in my garden. Both are grown from seeds which were a gift from my friend Emily. Emily has an amazing vegetable garden with more varieties of tomatoes and other vegetables than I could ever hope to grow. Tiny Tim is a determinate tomato, and therefore perfect for containers.  I don't seem to have a picture of the Oregon Spring, but it is indeterminate and is supposed to be an early season tomato. I haven't harvested any yet and I can't wait to try them.

Bonnie Grape - Grape tomatoes are probably my favorite kind of tomato. They're easy to throw into salads or other dishes without having to cut them up, or they can be eaten by themselves because they're so sweet and perfectly bite-sized. I've seen house guests pull them off the vine and pop them right into their mouth. I've even watched two 10-year-olds clean through these plants like a couple of locusts (just kidding, guys! But not really). We bought four plants and I've picked a handful of grapes already. I hope to be collecting many pints of grape tomatoes this year.  The vines usually grow wild so we have multiple stakes in the plant for support.

Better Boy - We've never grown these before. We bought them as plants, and this hybrid is supposed to produce a high-yielding, sweet-tasting, fungi/bacteria/parasite resistant tomato. That's a tall order! We'll see how they do.

Patio Princess - We are growing these tomatoes from seed. These small determine plants are perfect for containers. We grew them last year and they were good producers. The tomatoes weren't big enough to slice for burgers, for example, but they were juicy and good for chopping up into salsas.

The Rescue Tomato - The tomato we rescued from the weeds is doing really well. I still don't know what this will be when it grows up, but I know for sure it's not a grape tomato plant.

And as I mentioned in my last post, we also have green and purple tomatillos growing.  That's it for our tomato inventory.

What tomato varieties do you have in your garden?