Steve’s Garden – Update

Steve’s tomato plants are really growing. The garden actually looks like a jungle. He says next year he’s not going to plant so many. He has several varieties and will decide at the end of the season which ones did the best.

We had such a cool, wet spring. Compared to last year, the garden and plants in the yard are almost a month behind. We’ve only had two ripe tomatoes. But we are losing fruit every day - we’ve found that squirrels are big tomato fans. They have been climbing the fence, grabbing up tomatoes, climbing back out and eating them! They look like they have green tennis balls in their mouths! It is comical to watch, but maddening. Steve got his BB gun out to try to discourage the little varmints, but so far, it hasn’t deterred them! We’ve tried 'Shake Away', that didn’t work. Also we put out bowls of water, because I’d read that the squirrels were actually thirsty and were stealing the tomatoes for the juice. But they haven’t touched the water.

How tall do you think this plant is? Can you guess the type? It is a cherry tomato!!

Close-up of the fruit…

We put banana peels in the holes before we planted. Wonder if that is what has made them so tall? Steve waters them every so often with compost tea, and I’m sure that has helped as well. The garden kinda reminds me of…

Turtle Baby

While Steve was working in the garden today, he discovered a little turtle wandering among the tomatoes. I think he’s a box turtle. I picked him up and he stuck his neck out of his shell as far as he could, flailing all four legs. He was so cute. It made me want to go get an aquarium and keep him. But I know he’d be better off living as he was intended to live.


After I took the pictures, Steve let him go at the edge of the woods behind the garage. He’ll probably be back in the garden tomorrow! The neighbors across the street had a turtle in their garden last year and he took a bite out of every cantaloupe!

Speaking of the garden, it’s been a month since we planted everything. May has been a really crummy month for growing things. It seems like all it has done is rain, and its been cloudy a lot. Most of the tomato plants developed a fungus on their leaves and we had to spray them with a fungicide. All the neighbors’ tomatoes had the same problem. But today was hot and sunny, so hopefully the tomato plants will bounce back. We found two little green tomatoes on one plant this morning. Mom’s yellow tomato plant on the patio has a nice tomato on it.

Steve planted a LOT of different varieties of tomatoes. He is going to decide what kind to plant next year depending on the success of this year’s crop.

We Put Our Garden In

My husband almost killed me this weekend. I “help” him out in the yard, but he typically does the heavy work in the garden. This weekend was planting time, so I helped him plant twenty-seven tomato plants; red, green and yellow peppers; jalapenos, eggplants, and zucchini. Then I helped him put a temporary chicken wire fence around the whole thing to protect the garden from the deer and the rabbits and any other varmints that might want to help themselves to the fruits of our labor. It was almost 90 degrees out, and the humidity was pretty high as well. I still haven’t totally recovered!
Here’s a view from the long side (which is what we see from our screened porch).
We also planted seven new Knock Out roses in the front under my office window.
I already had the evening primrose that I planted two years ago. It has spread quite a bit. I love that it looks so translucent and delicate. I’ve read that it is considered to be a noxious weed by some gardeners, but I have it confined to one area and think it looks nice.
I have million bells that are two years old, too (see the mound down the walk. There are two pinks and two purples.) I cover them up with pine straw in the fall and they have come back twice now. It is so nice to have some of my flowers come back so I don’t have buy all new every spring.
What do you think about our Japanese maple? Isn’t it gorgeous?
In two weeks, we’ll be putting out fresh long leaf pine straw for mulch. We have a lot of beds…it takes about one hundred bales. When we put our yard in we thought we’d be smart and built a lot of beds so we wouldn’t have to mow as much. We didn’t think about what a chore it is to spread pine straw, not to mention how much it costs!

Ready for Spring

My husband put in his first garden last year. It was pretty small and all he planted was tomatoes, assorted bell peppers and jalapenos. It did quite well. He canned dozens of jars of jalapenos and I made and froze numerous quarts of tomato sauce. Here's a picture of him last May with his first crop.

He can't wait to start planting this year. Our temperatures have been averaging in the 60's during the day, but we are still getting a frost every so often. He's already bought some seeds and little peat trays to start them in. He's ordered a portable greenhouse and it should be delivered tomorrow. He decided to make the garden bigger this year, so today he dug up the new area and got all the roots out. Next, he'll amend the soil and till it up. Look at the pile of roots he dug out!

He has a friendly rivalry brewing with the neighbor across the street. The neighbor has a lot more garden area, though, and he had a huge assortment of vegetables last year. When we put our lawn in, we didn't think about wanting a garden later and didn't leave a spot for one. We found a sunny place at the edge of the woods just big enough to squeeze in a small plot. We should have known better. Being Italian, my husband has growing tomatoes in his blood. I think I'll have to watch him closely. Next thing you know, he'll be ripping out the grass to make his garden even bigger!