In the garden

Gardening

In the Garden –Tomatoes

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I’ve told you about my battle with the damn squirrels and my vegetable garden.  I’ve had the little rodents drop tomatoes out of trees at me, seen them scamper up those same trees with squash blossoms clenched in their tiny damn jaws, and found the carrot tops that were protruding out of the ground with little squirrelly bites taken out of them.

Yet, I continue to plant vegetables and complain!

This year I actually got five full size celebrity tomatoes and a bunch of grape tomatoes. 

Celebrity Tomato
The first tomato!
Celebrity and Grape tomatoes
And a few more, all five of the large tomatoes went into tomato sandwiches. The dozens of grape tomatoes were destined for salads or just popped into the grandkids mouths when I asked them to go pick them.  “Hey, where’s the tomatoes?”  Nom, nom, nom.

I suspect the damn squirrels were just so happy with finding a way to get into my “squirrel-proof” bird feeders, they forgot all about those silly vegetables.

Dam Squirrel
Damn squirrel in the First Bird Feeder
Damn Squirrel
And another one in the second!

And then dessert from the hummingbird feeder.  Who needs tomatoes?

Squirrel on feeder

The vegetable garden is done until fall.  Only plants left are chewed up parsley covered with lots of caterpillars!

In the Garden — Plumerias

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Perhaps I feature my plumerias too much but I think they are so beautiful and so rewarding for the little care they need.  I have several plumerias–all given to me as branches by friends.  When I see them in Home Depot or at a nursery, selling for top dollar, it just makes me shake my head.  These plants are the easiest plants in the entire world to propagate.  Maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but totally easy.

Most of my plumerias are in the ground now because they just got too big to keep in pots.  They can’t handle a freeze and I know that every winter there’s a chance that I’ll lose them.  So I cut one or two branches off of each flowering mature plant every summer, and stick it in a pot of potting soil.  I use Miracle-gro.  I’ve used other soils but my plants always do better in Miracle-gro.  The new plumeria will be the same color as its parent.  (I’m not sure “parent” is the correct technical term, but I’m using it!)

In the Garden -- Plumerias
Just cut a branch off at a fork on the plumeria.
In the Garden -- Plumerias
Stick the branch in a pot with moist potting soil. I usually put the cutting in shade until the next year.

Usually it takes about two years to bloom, but I just potted this one last summer and it will be blooming in a few weeks.

In the Garden -- Plumerias

In the Garden -- Plumerias
Buds on the one-year-old plumeria.

I also have one large pink plumeria that has had seed pods twice.  I gathered the seeds and never planted them. 

In the Garden -- PlumeriasSo while I was sticking that branch in a pot, I threw the seeds into another pot of soil.  I don’t know much about growing plumerias from seed other than they are not necessarily the same color as the parent.

And here’s some of the various colors that I already have.

In the Garden -- PlumeriasIn the Garden -- PlumeriasIn the Garden -- PlumeriasIn the Garden -- Plumerias

In the Garden -- Plumerias
This one is actually my neighbor’s plumeria. She gave me a yellow one but it only bloomed one time. But it’s big and leafy green now!

I put super bloom on the plants every week during the growing season.  They also like full sun, or at least morning sun.  Once it gets cool, I put the pots in the shed and never water them again until I pull them out early in the spring.  Then I repot them and give them some Epson salts so they’ll green up.  That’s it!  Easy peasy.