First tomatoes of the season are forming.  Sun Golds.

 Lincoln shelling peas.  Delicious.  Unfortunately the 15+ degrees over average temps we have been having for weeks have shut down the blossoms.  Hopefully the cool temps predicted for the next week will get them going again.  The foliage is still in great shape.

 Salad Bush cucumbers are starting to blossom.

Copra onions are a bit battered from last nights heavy rain storm, but they are developing nicely.

 My newest blueberry additions.  They were 1/2 off at Home Depot so I couldn't pass them up.  Here are Bluecrop and Jersey.

 My Golden Delicious had a bad case of rosy apple aphids.  Lady bugs to the rescue.  There is also another underneath a nearby leaf. I love these hungry beauties.

 My Dwarf Honeycrisp apple tree from Stark that I planted last Fall.  She's branching and leafing out nicely.

 Fat N' Sassy peppers are starting to bloom.  They are thriving in the crazy heat we've been having.

The "shell" garden.  Petunias, impatiens and nicotiana line the back edges.  Onions are the large patch in the front.  Freshly planted geraniums (a gift from my mother-in-law) are near the birdbath and front center.  One Cherokee Green and two Celebrity tomatoes are staked behind the birdbath.  Scarlet Nantes carrots and 3 Salad Bush cucumbers are to the right of the birdbath.  I may hate this heat and humidity, but the garden is thriving so far.

After a quick trip to the A. C. Moore craft store for some drawstring tulle bags, tomato bagging has commenced.  These are the 5 x 6/5" bags.  Not too big, not too small.  They have printable coupons, so I got these at 40% off.  So $3 for 18 bags.  I didn't think of it at the time, but the store also had a large size bag.  I was thinking those might be perfect to protect my grapes from the birds.  Last year the birds ate every last grape in the course of one night.  Not this year!

For years I've wanted to plant Burpee's Brandy Boy tomatoes.  $5 for 30 seeds and about $5 for shipping was much more than I would ever consider paying.  They just sent me another FREE SHIPPING coupon code.  I figured it's time.  I ordered my Brandy Boys.  I'm going to grow them in containers in case frost comes before I get a good harvest.  The free shipping coupon is good until May 14, 2012.  The code is FSH132.

Four of my 10 tomatoes.  Clockwise starting at the top left: Sandul Moldovan, Sun Gold, Sun Gold, and Kellogg's Breakfast.

My composters in back.  Mixed strawberry varieties in the raised bed in front of them.  The front bed is Music garlic and Kennebec potatoes.

 Caroline raspberry plants.  3'x3' bed.  I planted only THREE plants here in the fall.

My Fat N' Sassy (King Arthur) bell peppers.  This is a 3'x3' raised bed.  I placed one pepper in every square foot.  This spacing works beautifully for me each season.

Oh yeah!   It was just as sweet as it looked!  Best year for strawberries yet!

Seedling Updates

Post #2 of the day.
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We are having yet another above-average warm stretch. With the potential of record-breaking heat today, I decided that it's time to start hardening off my plants. They are now outside on a covered porch. The slight breeze will help sturdy up their stems, but they will be protected from the most intense hours sun.
Above are three of my five trays. The other two trays include one with seeds waiting to germinate (cukes, cardinal climber, nicotiana, carrots, lettuce) and another tray with small seedlings that have already germinated but are still small (petunias, cukes, more tomatoes, more peppers). Here they are up close.
Left to right:
There are two Salad Bush cucumbers that just germinated that are in the back, left corner.
Tomatoes ( just a couple of the ones started)
Fat N' Sassy (now called King Arthur) peppers in the front center.
Tango Celery tucked into the middle back.
Tropical Milkweed for the monarch cats to munch on.
In the front, Snow Crystals Sweet Alyssum that started blooming when it was quite small. It has a lovely fragrance which is what I was hoping for. Nicotiana sylvestris in the back...also for fragrance and moth appeal.
Dwarf Janie Deep Orange Marigolds. Just the other day I had to pick the first blooms off of most of them. They are nice and sturdy so far. Behind them in the tray are Oklahoma red zinnia and Fruit Smoothie Orange and Purple zinnia. It's funny. I used to look down on marigolds. That somehow, since they are easy to grow, that they aren't as impressive as other flowers. It wasn't until last season when I saw my daughter picking marigolds to place in vases that I saw them as something special again. Now my gardens will be filled with deep orange marigolds, so my daughter can make bouquets to her hearts content.

Winter came and went... Wait! Winter was here? We only had one good snow right before Halloween and perhaps two dustings after that. That was winter? I guess the strange weather had me preoccupied, and I didn't check in as much as I would have liked. To fill everyone in on what is going on around here on yet another warm, 70+ degree day......The daffodils visit is coming to an end. They sure are a dose of sunshine when they arrive though.
We had a new roof put on our house a few weeks ago. My relatively new (3 year old) Prairiefire Crabapple tree took quite a jolt. One of the roofers tossed something off the roof. It flew a good 15 feet out and caught one of the three main branches of the tree. Bent the end of this branch down to the ground and cracked it along the ridge. Poor thing. I thought the shovel tossed off the roof onto my Golden Zest rose or the three large garbage cans tossed on my blooming daffodils was going to be the worst of it. :(
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As you can see in the background, my hummingbird feeders went up a few days ago. According to the hummingbird migration maps, they're already north of us into New York. If you're interested, check out the link to the maps at http://www.hummingbirds.net/map.html
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It doesn't look like much in the backyard right now, but in a month or two, it should be green and lush.
My Meyers Lemon plant that I purchased about a year ago. It developed its first blooms and just opened for the first time this morning!
Last year I bought a small ivy plant at the grocery store. It did quite well in my eastern-facing window. I decided to take an old wire hanger and make this topiary. The hook is buried under the potting mix. Then I shaped the rest into a circle and twined the vines around it. Although I'm not a big fan of ivy, I do think this makes a nice presentation.
Above is one of my Snow Princess sweet alyssum. It looks like there might be some blossoms starting in the middle of this one. I've never grown sweet alyssum before, but I'm still trying to add fragrant delights to the garden.
Old-Fashioned Vining Petunias. A fragrant annual that is new to me this season.
My tomatoes were planted on the March 11th. They starting germinating the other day. Here is one of the Sun Golds that my daughter is anxiously waiting on. Their flavor hasn't been beaten yet by any other cherry tomato. I know it looks sad, but it's amazing how they can transform into something spectacular within a few months.
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I would be remiss if I didn't mention my tomato list for 2012. What was going to include only 4 plants turned into 12. So much for self-control.
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2 Sun Gold - Everyones favorite cherry tomato around this house.
2 Celebrity - Dependable, disease resistant choice.
2 Kellogg's Breakfast - My dad's favorite. Superb flavor. Get small toward end of season for me.
1 Cherokee Green- Amazing flavor. Winner for flavor in 2010. Best green yet!
1 Cherokee Purple- Did poorly in a bad tomato year last season. Giving it another try.
1 Sandul Moldovan- Excellent pink.
1 Pruden's Purple- New to me. Despite its name it is a pink. I hear good things about it's production and flavor.
1 Marion- I had old seed, but never tried it. I figured I would plant it to get fresh seed...and to taste it.
1 Marglobe- Same as Marion. I've never tried it, but would like fresh seed to replace the old. Interested to see how it tastes and produces.
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Left: Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) from last seasons saved seed.
Middle: Tango Celery. A hybrid.
Right: Fat N' Sassy Peppers. Another hybrid which are now sold under the name King Arthur.
Dwarf Red Haven Peach. This is the first time my Stark's supreme dwarf RH Peach has had blossoms on it. They have such a beautiful pink hue to the flowers. Gorgeous. Since the tree is still quite small...even for a dwarf, I won't let it fruit yet. The scaffolds need to thicken up a bit and branch out before I will put that kind of stress on it. It is nice to see that it is doing well though.
Music and German Extra Hardy garlic which was planted last October. Off to a healthy start.
Caroline Raspberries. This is all from ONE bareroot plant that I planted last Spring.
Earliglow Strawberries. I went out this morning to find a blossom already! Last year my first Earliglow started to blush on May 19th. With all of this ridiculously warm weather the last few weeks, they are way ahead of schedule. I hope they hang on when the temperatures drop back down starting tomorrow. It'll be going from mid- to high-70s back into the mid-50s (where it should have been all along).

Over the season I complained about this horribly ugly aster. How I need to move it because it's so tall, turns completely brown, and never looks good. Well, once the drought and heat waves finally passed, and the rains kept coming, she put on a ton of new growth. Quite quickly. She's never looked so good. And the best part...I never thought I'd see this. A bit of sunshine on a rainy day.If it's not aphids, it's the milkweed bugs...
The tomatoes are starting to decline. Spots. Dying leaves. Cracking fruit from all the rain. Starting to look pretty sad. A sure sign that the season is coming to an end.
Just outside of the above picture, to the right, is my Stupice tomato. It has easily produced the most tomatoes this summer, and is by far the worst off. Time to get pulled.
The Pink Delight butterfly bush and Fireworks goldenrod are blooming like crazy in all this rain, but it has left them bent over.
The Oklahoma red zinnia are really laying low, but the Caroline raspberries are loving the huge amounts of rain we have been getting over the last few weeks.

Today's harvest. Lucky Cross, Stupice (one), and a few Sun Gold tomatoes. Caroline raspberries. Oregon Sugar Pod peas that I forgot were out there. They have full-sized peas in the pods since they were picked passed their prime. I thought the peas would be hard a lack sweetness since they grew so large. The pods were alright, but the peas inside were quite delicious. I have to remember just to plant shelling peas in the future. We just seem to enjoy them more. Oh, and the brown clumps in the bowl are dried zinnia heads. I am saving some of the seed from my Oklahoma red for next season. These are blooming machines with NO mildew. Tropical Milkweed is again releasing seeds. I saved a few for next season.
Graham Thomas rose. It's been a bad year for roses so far. Only a few blooms in the beginning of the season. Then long periods of drought hit. Then flooding rains. Now that the weather has moderated, all the roses are putting out new buds and flowers are starting to finally starting to open.
Perhaps a week or so before Irene's rains hit, I cut back my blackberries to about 4 feet tall so the laterals would put on more growth. I tossed the prunings into a heap and went inside. An hour or so later I thought, "what a waste". I went out and cut the branches into 8 inch sections. Removed the lower sets of leaves, and tossed them into this container full of used potato soil....from my potato containers. It's been a few weeks and it looks like some of them are hanging on despite flooding rains and neglect. Others, on the left, haven't faired so well.
I had some left over green coated tension wire, so I finally gave my Major Wheeler honeysuckle a place to climb. It was rambling through my azaleas and on the ground. I really want it to travel up along my light post. The green color is barely noticeable from a short distance, so I think the honeysuckle will look quite nice blooming there next season.
Happy Gardening!

My resident hummingbird. She stops by several times a day. Okay, it's probably not the same one each time, but I enjoy the visits nonetheless. Stupice Tomatoes. All are ripening at the same time. TONS of them.
Mucho Nacho Jalapenos. They don't normally crack like this, but the plant has been ignored for a few weeks.
Queen of Sweden Rose. She waited until now to really start putting on a show.

So my Spring-planted raspberries were starting to be taken over by a monster tomato vine. Not sure which variety. Either a Cherokee Green or Lucky Cross that was left over from earlier in the season. I decided to plant it in a large empty spot by the raspberries. All of a sudden, it took off. Foliage so lush and healthy. It kept growing and growing, but I never saw any tomatoes or flowers. I was sure it was because it gets a lot of shade from the overhanging holly. My poor raspberries were getting buried and were trying so hard to get to the light. I didn't want to have to do it, but I got out the loppers. I would have just grabbed the vine and pulled, but it was so dense I decided to chop away huge chunks first. There were no tomatoes on it anyway, and it had to be done for the sake of the raspberries. First chunk. Gone. Second large chop. Done. Third large cut....WAIT! What is that? Two of the most perfect large tomatoes I have ever seen (with the exception of catalog pictures). Not a blemish on them. No cracks. Just tomato perfection. Chopping stopped! Although the vine is about half the size, these two perfect nuggets of summer perfection are still going strong and the raspberries can see the light of day once again.
I was harvesting pumpkins really early this season. I was worried that I wouldn't have any pumpkins for Halloween. Almost all the vines had completely died. Then, after what seemed like overnight, wa-la! The vines re-rooted themselves and shot up all this new foliage. Next season I will have to make more of an effort to bury the vines in the beginning of the season.We've achieved pollination! All hope is not lost. A Halloween pumpkin!
First berry of the season...a Caroline. These are some big, yummy berries.