Tomatoes!

BHN-624

Finally some tomatoes are ripe! They are small cherry tomatoes but they are very good. Some larger varieties are growing in various places around the yard but they are still very small. So it will be another few weeks until they are ready.

These are a cross between a cherry and a grape tomato.

Blackberry Tree

Earlier in the year I tied some blackberry canes up to a dogwood tree in the backyard to give them some support. Now they are beginning to ripen and it's like having a blackberry tree.

I was picking some this afternoon and it reminded me of a time that I was with my grandparents. We were out at the airport and on the way back my grandaddy saw some blackberries growing along side a barbwire fence. At the time he was a multi-millionaire and we were in an expensive Buick but he didn't hesitate to pull right off on the side of the road and all three of us hopped out and started picking blackberries right there.

When I was a kid we spent most of our time in the woods and we always found blackberries and blueberries. I would eat as many blackberries as I could pick. Sometimes I would collect enough to take home so that they could make a cobbler. It's been quite awhile since I've had any blackberry cobbler. Maybe that will change this year.

Abundance! (sort of)

Bee balm

Bee balm came back in a planter that is on the front porch. The blossoms are really cool looking. It definitely attracts bees.

As an herb it has a lot of actions like antimicrobial, and diaphoretic. It can be used as a substitute for oregano.

It's a very cool herb and we want to use it more often.

Blackberry

Raspberries are starting to produce a little bit of fruit but we've only got three plants that we just put in this season. One died all the way back to the roots, but it is showing some new growth now.

Strawberries are beginning to make a second round of berries. We harvested a good amount in the first round.

Blackberries are beginning to ripen but they are being hindered because they are in a fairly shaded area, but there are lots of them.

Apricot

The gooseberries are just about to ripen although we don't have very many of them.

Gooseberry

Oddly enough, today I discovered two apricots on the apricot tree, which we never noticed had bloomed at all. They are both nearly ripe as well.

In the backyard just this week I discovered that there is a mulberry tree producing fruit in the yard next door that hangs over our fence. So the majority of it is falling in our yard.

In the front yard, I've just discovered that we have black cherry tree. Black cherry can be used for a number of different things like jams and infusions with liquor.

I believe that it must take a minimum number of chill hours for the mulberry and cherry to set fruit because the last two years they did not bear any fruit. This past winter was very cold for a long time.

Tomato Update

Finally there are some tomatoes on the vines here. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we can begin harvesting some.

These are Roma tomatoes, I think.

These plants need to be suckered quite often. They really want to try and run away on you.

June 2nd

We started these way back in February from seeds.

The most sunny spot in the yard is where the deck is, so we've done a lot of containers.

We also dispersed some around the yard in different places where there will hopefully be enough sun, but those places are limited. I believe that we've got about a dozen different varieties. It will be interesting to see which ones do the best.

May 1st

We didn't start them all at the same time so there are some that we've just repotted into larger containers.