Zombies and Kittens

First the Zombie...amaryllis, that is. I ordered this in the spring and finally got it this fall. It was already showing some growth so I planted it and this is the result. Eight beautiful double flowers. My only regret is that they are spent too fast. After only a bit more than a week the flowers are finished and a leaf is beginning to grow.

But it is definitely a keeper and I'll look forward to many more blooms in future years.

The rescued kittens are almost at the cat stage. They are almost 7 months and a real joy to have in the house. It's fun to see the group or mob mentality set in when they play and follow us around the house. Like a little troup of monkeys always in motion, always looking for something to get into. And they're finally healthy except for the watery eyes.

My last outdoor harvest for this first season was some onions and leeks that I overlooked among all those rambling tomatoes, squash, and pumpkin plants. They weren't very good but I'll use them in soup or something. The garden is put to bed for the winter and I have 5 garbage cans of new compost stored for spring.

Now the new seed catalogs are beginning to arrive and thought of lush, green gardens next summer are beginning to fill my head.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Fall Harvesting

I've been working to get the raised beds put to bed for the winter and empty out the many self-watering containers around the yard. This beauty is from the Tarahumara sunflower. It is about 14 inches across and the seeds are very white. It towered on a 12 foot stalk that is like a tree trunk.

I hope this American Egret across the street wasn't sitting there digesting any of my pond fish. Every now and then we get egrets, herons, and kingfishers hanging around the pond. I don't mind giving a few fish to the kingfishers though because they are among my favorite birds.

The morning glory's are blooming beautifully on the teepee trellis in the back yard. I will definitely put them there again next year.

Cherokee Purple tomato has put out a heavy second crop that I'm hoping to harvest. The late blight that is ravaging the country is now in our county, too. One of my other plants by this one looks suspicious.

I planted 4 of these hot peppers from a grocery store pepper whose name is unknown to me. I call Aztec Hot just for fun and it was a very heavy producer. I grew them in an Earthbox and they did great. My husband love hot peppers and so we have 5 batches of fiery hot salsa canned for winter plus at least 4 bags of sliced in the freezer. I picked the last few today.

Okay now, I really thought I pulled the watermelon because the vines were so puny. But then when I was looking for pumpkins I found this little guy hidden under the leaves. I didn't even know what it was at first, then I remembered that the watermelon variety I chose was to be golden outside and red inside. So it's a tiny little watermelon. My only one. And they weren't supposed to be anywhere near this small!

I cut one small Kakai pumpkin today to check the seeds. It was loaded with ripe hull-less seeds that are ready to roast and eat. Can't wait to do the rest of them! They even tasted good raw. The pumpkin flesh is pale and not supposed to be very good eating so I'll just use the seeds. I have 9 pumpkins of assorted sizes, the largest being about 12 inches across, and the smallest about 6 inches.

These are kamo-kamo squash, a New Zealand variety. The fully ripe ones are just okay - very tough skin and kind of stringy with a mediocre flavor. Sound like I'll grow them again? Probably not. I have 9 of these. One is still underripe so I'm going to cook that one and see if it tastes better. The info on this one says they are good as summer or winter. I'm not impressed with the winter flavor. But they surely are pretty. I love the heavy orange ribs.
Aside from the gardening I'm still tending a sick kitten. Boo, Cosmo, and Cupcake all had their front claws removed and were spayed a few weeks ago. Boo had complications and developed a very bad abcess under the skin in her abdomen. So Monday she had surgery again to open that up and clean out all the infection. Now she has stitches again, many more than before because the vet had to make about a 2 and a half inch incision this time. It's tough on her because she has to be in a cage with the e-collar to keep her from licking or taking out stitches (but she got one anyhow...) isolated from her 2 sisters who would beat her up relentlessly and also kept from playing much...good luck on that one, too! She also has to have 2 different antibiotics twice a day and hot compresses on her incision 3 times a day.
So I take her out of the cage about 4 times a day for a while and the rest of the time she cries or sleeps. Another week and a half of this. But she is looking infection free so far.
And yes, it's been expensive - but the vet hasn't charged for the office calls and didn't charge for the follow-up surgery. Bless him!! I just have been paying for the medicines involved.

Composting question

No pictures today, just a composting question that I sure would like answered. I have to clear a bin for fall leaves, garden refuse, etc., and the bin in question is ready to sift. So do I put the really nice new compost on the gardens now even though the growing season is finished or do I find a way to store it until spring and put in on fresh then?
So far I have filled 3 garbage cans with good new compost and I would have enough once sifted to fill 4 more but I don't have 4 more cans.
What do you think?

Garden Blogger's Bloom Day

I think this is spelled wrong but don't know where the sheet is with the right spelling. Anyways, this is 'Procion' however it's spelled. A beautiful 4 inch fiery dahlia new to me this year.

Yellow dahlia bud complete with water droplet.

Sunflower

A red lily my mother gave me this month as a gift. Thanks, Mom!

Swallowtail on loosestrife. Somebody likes that extremely invasive plant!
(And it's not in my garden. It's in a local field.)

Monarchs on cosmos?

Purple coneflower composition.

A single blue morning glory against the cloudy sky. Now I have dozens on this plant every morning. Beautiful!
Happy Blogger's Bloom Day!

Veggies that aren't tomatoes

Tigger is a small and very colorful white-fleshed melon. Too bad there is so little flesh inside and an almost cucumberish taste... It is officially on my 'won't grow this again' list.

Tarahumara sunflower, on the other hand, is wonderful. See it towering above the 8 foot trellis? That was easily 12 feet tall with a nice flower head, probably 10 inches wide. My neighbor has really been enjoying them outside her window.

The zucchini and kamo-kamo squash bed. The zucchini has produced fairly well and we have used them up in a variety of ways, from muffins, to stir-fry dinners, to a canned zucchini relish that my husband really likes. These photos are from a few weeks ago and unfortunately powdery mildew is rapidly overtaking the squash and pumpkin beds. Kamo-kamo has plenty of nice squash on it but, being a winter squash, I haven't tried any of them yet.

The pumpkin bed has done very well and has several very nice pumpkins beginning to turn orange. Can't wait to try the seeds - it is Kakai, a hull-less seeded variety grown especially for the seeds.

A small cantaloupe, Petit de gris, still not ready to harvest. Soon though. Hope it's better than Tigger!

And last, Lemon Cucumber and Mexican Sour Gherkin. I won't grow the Lemon one again, but maybe the Mexican Sour, mostly because it was just such a darn cute container plant and didn't get the disease that overcame the disease that ravaged cucumbers and melons in our area.

The pepper plants grew wonderfully well in the Earth box. A bumper crop of hot peppers for salsa and freezing.

So that's it for now. My radishes, carrots, and beets did terribly bad - very woody. Any tips?

Tomato Evaluation

In getting caught up on the summer harvest I thought I'd do tomatoes first. The tomatoes are winding down quite a bit now, but a few weeks ago they reached their peak and I had a bit of canning and freezing to do. The center of this photo is my 3 foot aisle between the raised beds. I felt like I was playing the old game of Twister every time I went out to pick the tomatoes. Good thing I have a fenced yard. It surely wasn't a pretty sight...

On the best harvest day this is what I ended up with for my 21 plants of about 13 varieties.

Below, of the low acid varieties: White Beauty, a beefsteak heirloom, Italian Ice from Burpee, Isis Candy, and Amano Orange. Isis Candy was my favorite small tomato so I saved seeds for next year. Chocolate Cherry (not pictured and not low acid) was very tasty, too, and I'll probably grow one next year.

Sheyenne has been a good producer with a nice average tomato flavor and very juicy. I would consider growing it again.

The Striped Roman was an interesting curiosity, but I won't grow it again. The flavor isn't too bad, but it tends to have a mealy texture and too much core to cut out. However, the Cherokee Purple will definitely be in my garden next year. It has a wonderful flavor and texture and is a good slicer and canning tomato. Plus, I can buy plants at the local greenhouse and wouldn't have to start my own if I don't want to.

At first I didn't care much for Cabin, a rare heirloom from Wintersown, but after I used a few I decided to save seeds and will grow it again. It has a decent flavor, nice large size, and is very low on juice and seeds to it should be a good sauce tomato. Because it's not as juicy it's good for sandwiches. I also liked Silvery Fir Tree a lot and saved seeds to it. It was early and determinate and I don't have photos of it, but it had an excellent flavor, salad size. The down side was that it split easily when it rained, but the flavor was SO good. Next year I'll try to do a couple of succession plantings for this one. It was also a nice container plant, being a smaller plant than most of the ones I grew.

Tomatoes I won't be growing again: Italian Ice cherry tomato - a very poor flavor and texture; White Beauty - nice size and lots of tomatoes - fun to put in White Chili, but the flavor is just average and I guess I mostly like red tomatoes; Amano Orange - on the small side and not my favorite flavor; Goji Faranji, an Iranian beefsteak that is very soft and damages too easily for me; Bushy Charbarysky; a smallish velvety pink tomato. If I were a hybridizer I would love to experiment with the Bushy Charbarysky plant. It was very sturdy and small and put out nice clusters of tomatoes - a great plant, but mediocre flavor.

I found a recipe for a really tasty sauce using the small, sweet cherry tomatoes. It called for sungold - I used the Isis Candy. The sauce is used for a dip or a chicken glaze - maybe a soup base, or whatever. It's sweet and very rich.
My version: Golden Tomato Sauce
2 1/2 cups of skinned sweet tomatoes
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/4 cup celery, shredded or chopped
1/4 cup onion, shredded or chopped
1/2 cup carrots shredded
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
Mix all ingredients, simmer about 45 minutes, stirring often. Cool slightly and blend in a food processor to a creamy consistency.
Freezes well.

The original recipe says to just throw in the tomatoes, skins and all then blend them up. I did it once and hated it. The skins tasted like tiny wooden sticks mixed into the sauce. The next batch I dunked each tomato in boiling water and slipped of the skins first, but didn't worry about leaving the seeds in. They don't affect the flavor or texture as badly as the skins do. I also upped the amount of other veggies. The original called for 3 Tbsp of each - I probably went closer to 1/2 cup on each.
So, that's the great tomato round-up for 2009.
Next year I'm going to try pruning and staking at least some of the tomatoes so I don't have such a jungle and maybe bigger tomatoes.
Next blog: the other vegetables!

Little Kitties and the Big Dogs

Doesn't it look like the kitties are growing and adjusting really well? Cupcake is so extremely cute!! Of course, this is before she chewed the belly button off her blue buddy. She is 'classic cat' and proud of it.

Cosmo actually is as sweet as she looks. She loves to cuddle with people. And her fur is as soft as velvet. She's just about a perfect kitten - rarely bites - plays well with others.

But mostly they spend their days getting in trouble. Eating the plants, going over the ledge on to the kitchen table, eating the dog food, biting fingers, toes, and paws, nosing into every nook and cranny of the house. I keep them on the porch at night so the rest of us can actually sleep safely!

Crowding the big dog off of his favorite pillow. Doesn't Boo look smug? These two kitties actually were sucking on the pillow and sucked a hole in it. Now it's theirs, in a different spot, and the big dog has another one that's not as appealing to the kittens, but that he likes just fine.

Boo wants to run with the 'big dogs'. She absolutely loves them and just won't leave them alone. She bugs Strider so much that I've had to let him growl and nip at her to chase her away when she bothers him too much. When he does that she will leave...for at least a minute...

She's also trying to make up to Lucy. She's the only one. The other two stay away from Lucy.
This is a rare, peaceful moment for Lucy and any kitten.

This is much more normal!
When Lucy is in the house I spend a lot of time scolding her and getting her to let go of kittens. She hasn't hurt them but the mouthing bothers me, especially when it's 2 big 70 lb. dogs to one 3 lb. kitten.
But all in all it's going well.
For the next two weeks the dogs and kittens have to stay separated. The kitties were neutered and had their front claws removed today and will need some safe time to heal up.
Next blog: veggies and flowers. I promise!