Even though we are smack dab in the middle of Houston, it's better up on the roof. Sing it, Sweet Baby James. (If you click that link, look for the orange circle on the left to hear the tune.) (Or, look for the video bar on the right side of this blog).
Here we are in late November, and all four tomato plants growing on the deck have boucoups flowers on them. It's been getting chillier and it's hard to say how long they'll hang in there.
The shot below is the Brandywine. Finally, over the last few days, we have some fruit coming on it. We've been taking a small paintbrush and dusting all the flowers on all four plants, trying to pollinate/fertilize the flowers. It seems to be helping. We rarely see any bees around here. A few. Very few. Saw one just today though. Lots of flowers to get to, Mr. Bee, where you been?
As usual, click the pics to make it bigger.
We've counted seven fruits now on the Brandywine...by far the slowest producer of the four.
Picked enough from the various plants on the deck to put together a couple of small salads recently. Four kinds of lettuce, endive, chard, bok choi, carrot top, kale, onion, and unfortunately, an unripe green sausage tomato. All are shaping up nicely...production should be picking up soon...Congress did what?!
The sunset lettuce has already contributed many leaves to salads...
...as has the dark lollo rosa lettuce...it's loving the cooler weather.
....likewise the lau's pointed leaf lettuce....I wonder if I'm contributing to global warming, in reverse?
...and the little gem (head) lettuce...no "heads" yet, but plenty of leaves...
...we may still have to remove one of the two remaining green goliath broccoli....
...the mesclun mix (four more different types of lettuce) is coming along...
...and the yellow, pink and orange chard is/are perking up....snip snip
...the old grandfather swiss chard is still producing...
...and the New Zealand spinach continues to chug along and produce succulent little leaves....
Spiders produce silk?! Wow, how totally freaky...
...we thinned out the kale a bit recently...may still be a couple too many in this pot...
...and the bok choi is really turning on the gas...uh, growth, I mean....
....carrots! We're going to have some carrots this time!!
...and the endive has provided us with a lot of baby...endives? as well...
The green sausage tomato plant has gone insane. There must be 40+ fruits on this plant. We thought it was dead a few months ago and almost tossed it out, but it crawled back to life and then went nuts. So far, we've only taken one fruit off of it, and it was un-ripe, so at least now we have a better idea of what unripe looks like. Can't wait....
The Bradley Pink tomato plant (below) is second in production with about 30 fruits on it in various stages of ripening. Only one has ripened so far and it was most excellent. Tons of flowers all over it, still...
...coming in third in this slow-motion race is the Dr. Carolyn, a cherry-tomato-sized heirloom from Baker Creek. This is a super-dense plant, so different from the other three. We had some aphids on this plant a few weeks back, and they devoured a few fruits, but I sprinkled them with DE (diatomaceous earth) and they seemed to go away. The later fruits have not shown any sign of pests, but none have ripened enough to eat yet.
Oh, and the fennel is coming along nicely. If you can zoom in on the left third of the picture, you'll see a garlic poking its white stem out of the dirt. Garlic greens, here we come...
and finally, the Cabela's chairs have arrived! These chairs are awesome...perfect for laying back and watching the sky. Not that we can see all that many stars from our home in Houston, but the longer you are in the dark, the better you can see. And the moon has its cycles...
It may be time for some cold frames, to extend our growing season even into the coldest months. We'll see.
Good luck with your garden! Forget about the world for awhile. Chances are it will still be there. As long as we're on the way down, we might as well enjoy the ride.
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