Tomatoes

I picked the rest of the green tomatoes today....not a lot....for the number of plants....very poor summer for my tomatoes...my garden in partially shaded in the AM and sunny in PM and evening....I guess there was not enough sun to ripen and produce more....
This AM I picked dahliahs and baby roses for my elderly friends, Millie and Doris...they loved the fresh garden flowers....
Just did some watering in the greenhouse and potted one fern...it had started growing baby ferns through the holes in the bottom of the pot so I had to cut the pot off the plant....I put the mother fern in a larger pot and potted all the babies into one pot....hope they grow well....

Continuing 2008 Cleanup

The garden cleanup has started....cosmos that blew over in last week's wind have been chopped down....Mona Lavender Plectranthus (2 plants) were dug up and are now in pots in the greenhouse along with Silver Knight Plectranthus (huge plant)...also dug up small parsley plants and sad looking basil...they are in vases of water. waiting to be potted.
I picked large amount of marigolds, a few helianthus-they are now sparse, and some gaillardia and put them in brass pots to decorate my church this weekend.
I potted a Brouwallia plant but don't know if I can winter it in the greenhouse but I love the blue flowers....Tons of weeds were yanked out also and the rest of the bean plants. Swiss chard had a blight so it is gone now. I pulled out some celery-it wasn't great but I kept the leaves to dry for my soups...the celery leaves have exceptional flavour...I had to quit after a couple of hours as my back was starting to tell me to stop.
I also picked 4 citrons and will make preserves this weekend.

Left in the garden: carrots, celery,tomatoes, and flowers.

Crowding the greenhouse

Today, I wonder - where will I put all the plants that I want to bring in from outdoors - my greenhouse seems so crowded at present - so - without thinking about it, I dug up 2 begonias, 3 coleus and 2 geraniums from the front flower bed...they are all potted now and looking fine. I moved the pots of geraniums to the back patio and dug up some ornamental cabbage to put out front in plastic pots for autumn decorating. The marigolds and sedum are really colourful now so the cabbage will add some pizzazz.
My cosmos in the back garden blew over last night in Hurricane Ike's wind, so I chopped a couple of them down. Then I filled up four pots with compost and dug up a phlox and some shasta daisies for my friend, Joe, and also, some hydrangea and helianthus for my Peggy's garden. The ground was very moist from the rain last night so it was perfect digging. I also dug up my Creeping Rosemary plant and cleaned it up and put it in a big pot in the greenhouse for wintering.
I am happy that I was able to get so much work done today...it was lovely and cool....yesterday was very hot and sticky so today was a perfect day for me to be outdoors.
I picked a handful of little yellow tomatoes also.
Yesterday, I picked some carrots....very small and spindly this year....the beets were small also and the beefsteak tomatoes are taking forever to ripen. Yesterday I gave Mark some green tomatoes to fry and I might have to fry the rest for myself...I am getting tired of waiting for them to ripen.
I feel a little sad that my garden is getting empty, but we have enjoyed it a lot.

Garden Cleanup has started

I have started to clear out some of the jungle of garden that grew this summer....yesterday, we took 11 small bags which equalled a car trunkload to Lappan's Lane.....we are still eating beans, celery, onions, tomatoes and herbs...potatoes have been harvested, beets were disappointing....they were very small but they were tasty. For the past few days, we are having a mini heatwave and the flowers are drying up quickly, which makes me sad....hubby has been watering daily which helps....autumn is approaching fast.....one wonderful thing I discovered yesterday.....I have 3 citron melons growing and not just 1....my first year for this fruit....