The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

A couple of days ago, I was out in the garden picking some grape tomatoes.

As you might remember, the tomatoes are planted in raised beds made out of wood. The bed walls are about 15″ tall with aisle ways between them.

Anyway, I was planning on really cleaning up those tomato plants. I had already picked about a peck of good tomatoes. As I came across a rotten tomato, I just tossed it about four feet away into the aisle so I could rake them up later for composting. My picking went something like this: pick 4 or 5 good ones…toss 1 bad one …and so on, until the basket was full.

I casually tossed my 40th mushy tomato out into the aisle, when all of a sudden I saw something flash into the air toward the tomato (that was by now arching about two feet into the air, near the top of its trajectory). This was followed something much larger that then connected with the tomato and the first object.

A frog who was sitting behind the wall of the raised bed, had shot his tongue out to catch the tomato, then in a nanosecond; had jumped up, followed his tongue and caught the tomato in mid-air! By the time he landed, he had the entire tomato completely in his mouth!!

He sat there for just a second or two then spit the tomato out. The way he spit that tomato out reminded me of a baby “mooshing” out a mouth full of strained vegetables. Even the expression on his face made him look like he was surprised! I tell you what, I never knew frogs could change their facial expressions like that!!

I was laughing so hard I could hardly hold the camera still enough to get his picture.

Here he is sitting just in front of the tomato he had just “mooshed” out.

I suppose a frog could legitimately mistake that tomato for a colorful insect of some sort , especially when it is moving through the air.

After a few minutes, and watching several more tomatoes pass by, he hopped away. I presume, to look for more productive hunting grounds!

His dignity doesn’t look too tarnished, does it?

Bob

Remember back in August I promised that I would show you what a Leopard Lily (Belamcanda) seed cluster looks like?

Well, here it is:

Now you know why its other common name is “Blackberry Lily”.

Even though the common name is Blackberry Lily (sounds delicious), it really belongs to the Iris family. Since Irises are considered poisonous, we must assume these are poisonous as well…so… don’t eat them!

Bob

I’ve noticed in a lot of gardener’s yards, a cloud of white flowers on fences, trellises, and even sheds. Maybe you are seeing it too.

What we are looking at is the very popular fall blooming clematis ‘Sweet Autumn’. This is a very vigorous yet non-invasive climbing vine that puts on quite a show this time of year.

It is readily available at most garden centers and nurseries and is relatively easy to grow. It’s not unusual for this vine to grow up to 20′ the first year.

We have ours planted amongst the climbing roses. This gives us some visual interest on the trellis during a time of the year when the roses look pretty tired.

Since they are fall blooming clematis, they are best pruned in the late spring by cutting the vines down to about a foot tall. This sounds drastic, but stand back because the vines will come roaring back and have your trellis covered with new growth by mid-season.

As an added bonus, the flowers have a sweet, but not over-powering fragrance.

What more can you ask for in a plant?

Bob

The onions have been dug and taken care of a few weeks ago. I thought you might like to see part of our crop since you saw them get planted in the spring.

They were ready to harvest when the tops began to fade and fall over. We knocked over the ones that were still upright and waited a few days before digging.

After digging and washing, we closed the sun shade and dried them on the floor of the empty greenhouse. We were looking for a shady, airy place for the onions to cure.

The red onions are “Mars”, a good ‘burger or salad onion. They are mild and have great color, white with red rings. They are not for long term storage.

The onions in the foreground are “Copra”, a very good onion for long term storage. As a matter of fact I still have some in the cooler from last year and they are still good!

Copra onions are strong flavored when eaten raw. They are a marvelous cooking onion, however, making wonderful grilled onions or French Onion soup.

Speaking of which, I haven’t had dinner yet!

Bob

The raspberries have been ripe for a while and are still going strong. As a matter of fact these later raspberries are bigger and tastier than the first picking.

The variety we have is a fall bearing type called ‘Heritage’. This is the most popular variety of raspberry grown in the world… and for good reason: 1) you can sometimes get a small crop of berries the very first year you plant them, 2) the berries are nice and firm which means you can pick them without destroying them, 3) they are resistant to most raspberry diseases.

Heritage was developed by Cornell University over 35 years and was named 2004 Variety of the Year by the American Society of Horticultural Sciences… talk about a long time to get some recognition! I guess that proves there is still some hope for the rest of us (I’ve been waiting for over 35 years too).

The major objection I have to growing raspberries is the fact that they take me so long to pick. I would never make it as a full-time professional raspberry picker. It is worth the effort though, there is nothing like fresh picked raspberries.

These 15 pints of berries took me, well, I don’t know how long to pick, but it was a while.

Next year I’m going to use 1/2 pint baskets… that way I can give away twice as many containers of raspberries in the same amount of time!

Bob