Tomatoes and Sunflower


Five varieties of tomatoes fresh from the garden today. Martino Roma, Polish Linguisa, Jersey Devil, Olpaka, and Heidi.


We are going to get lots of sunflower seeds from this huge flower. No wonder it's called Mammoth.

In the garden today, July 30, 2009

The sunflower is huge. As the seeds develop it gets more bulbous.


It is getting very top heavy. This is a photo taken from directly underneath.


The bee block is a big hit this year too. The most desirable holes are almost completely filled. I think I need to make another block this week.


Pomegranates are looking good this year.


Pimientos de Padrón peppers are growing pretty well. I got the pepper plants in the ground late so they are just starting to produce. Emily is waiting for me to bring her a big bag of these beauties. This one is ready to be picked. Happy Quail Farms has more info about this pepper and it's origin.

July 20th sunflower

Big sunflower opening

I measured the sunflower's height today. I was 95 inches. Almost 8 feet tall.

Tall sunflower and some corn

The sunflower is getting huge and the popcorn is starting to get it's tassels.


Almost each plant has grown several stalls from one seed. Hope to have lots of popcorn for the rest of the year. I'm planting some white corn for us to eat and freeze for the winter.

Flower vs. Flour

A sunflower and a white cosmo in the background.


White cosmo

The other night when we decided to heat up our pizza. It went horribly wrong. I heated up the new oven and put one piece each of our pizza slices. (I got distracted from Nedda's constant IM-ing and lost track of time. :) Two pieces were unfortunately burnt beyond the point of edibility. The smoke alarm went off, Button ran outside, and I burnt my finger. Sid took the battery out of the smoke alarm and we got the fan out and opened all the windows. Button calmed down and we ate the other two slices, but I was still a little hungry. :(

Overhead view

Winter seedlings

Today's sunflower. I'll check tomorrow between 10 - noon to see if there are any honey bees interested in this sunflower.


The far right raspberry is really starting to get red now. I didn't realize how many raspberries you can get off of one plant. I hope next year I get an even better crop. The second plant has not started to bloom. I don't think I will get any berries from it this year.

The first row are broccoli plants from seeds I collected from last year's plants.


The carrots are in the second and third row of this flat. I will carefully transplant them into the ground this weekend. I would have never planted carrots in a flat, but I took a class at Common Ground in Palo Alto, and they had success starting them in flats and transplanting them into the garden.


The back rows are broccoli seedlings from seeds that the front row were originally grown from. I want to see how the second generation does compared to the first. Click on the images to see a larger version. The detail is worth the extra click.

Fancy Bee/Wasp

There are little, tiny, sunflowers that want to grow off the sides of the sunflower. They will be the extra smallest sunflowers ever.

I saw this bee/wasp on a parsley plant that is about to bloom. It kept wiggling it's butt while on the flower. Look at the larger pictures. There is a lot of detail that is lost in the small pictures.

I'll do some research and try to figure out what species of insect it is.


Another picture of the unknown bee/wasp.

Smallest sunflower... ever.

The new sunflower seems to be very tiny. It's about 3 in diameter. I started this plant in a 6 pack seed container and didn't transplant it very quickly. It was very root bound. I think it might have stunted it's growth. It's still very pretty. I hope the honey bees will like it. I want to have at least one sample for the Great Sunflower Project.


Here are the Black Hungarian's ready to be dried.


After several tens of hours in the food dehydrator they look like peels from an apple. They still needs some more time before they will be ready for making into paprika powder.

A new sunflower and carrot seedlings

This is a variety I call La Salle. I've been saving seeds from it for a few years now. They only grow to be about 3 feet high. I like the flavor of the seeds.


Carrot seedlings seemed to pop up over night. I'll need to transplant them all this weekend. Then I'll start the seeds, that I got in mail, in this flat.


The pumpkin is growing fast now.

Cat paws and peppers

Close up of the sunflower seeds. It's almost time to cut off the head and put it in a paper bag to dry out.


A couple of young green beans. Variety is Blue Lake Pole.


Some of the raspberries are starting to turn red.


Lu thought he would help out with this photo. These are Black Hungarian Paprika. I'll dry them and make paprika powder.


Pretty blue sky with some clouds.

It's hard to find interesting pictures of the sunflower



Jimmy Nardello chile

I planted broccoli, celery, and carrots. I ordered seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co.

Broccoli - Romanesco Italia
Califower - Snowball Self-Blanching
Celery - Tendercrisp
Kohlrabi- Early White Vienna
Leeks - Carentan
Lettuce - Oak Leaf
Lettuce - May Queen
Lettuce - Petite Rouge
Lettuce - Amish Deer Tongue 

Photos from 8-8-08

This is the largest harvest of strawberries, so far this year. Variety is Albion.


Bunch of tomatoes again. The bottom most is Caspian Pink, the first one this season. Other varieties shown are Orange Strawberry, Brandywine O.T.V., Brandywine from Croatia, and lots of Anna Russians. Oh yeah, there are 3 small Roma-style. I'm not sure what the variety is. I thought I wast planting Polish Linguisa, but these are not that variety.

Grandkids (dogs) with backpacks

Sunflower looks like it has dreadlocks.


The kids are ready for school or at least a hike. They both now can carry enough water and poo for a couple of hours away from home. Button's new backpack is from Ruffwear. It seems like it is going to be a lot better than Carbon's. After a couple of hikes we will see if we need to get Carbon a new pack.

I picked several Anna Russian tomatoes this morning and shared them with some friends. Emily of luckymathilda, ended up with this beauty. I hope Sharla also enjoys the plain, boring tomatoes she received ;)

Bean flowers of different colors


This variety of bean has 2 different color flowers, yellow and white.


Beans, beans, the more you eat them, the more you fart.


Another Anna Russian tomato. There are about 7 tomatoes ready to pick again on this plant. It definitely likes growing in my garden. I will make sure to plant it next year. Maybe even more than one plant.

Close up of sunflower, cilantro and raspberries


These are cilantro seeds, Coriander. I'll save some for planting and some for grinding up for spices.

These raspberries sure take a long time to ripen. I can't wait to pick them. At least I don't have to worry about Japanese Beetles in the west or at least I have never come across any here. When I was a kid I would eat raspberries off the my neighbors bushes. Once I was eating them so fast I "crunched!" into one. I spit it out quickly to find a Japanese Beetle. GROSS!!!