Tomato, ToMAHto

So, tomatoes are my favorite food. As such, I only eat them in their prime. Which, here in B to the more is August. Namely nearly my birthday (August 19th. I will be 30. Am scared) week. So, why are all of my tomato plants full of GREEN tomatoes? We have some flowers and some tiny tomatoes but nothing ripe. Well. We have had 2 ripe tomatoes since June (both now in quotes "Early" Girls) and one in June (yellow pear) and nothing else. For all of June/July we pretty much had zero flowers so at least these flowers speak of potential but we are going to Belgium for a little over a week in early September and I have horrible thoughts that they are all going to ripen then. Is it in bad taste to ask the neighbors to pick my tomatoes and then hold them for me? We have like 10 heirloom varieties I am dying to eat. This summer was supposed to be the summer of tomatoes, not the summer of suck. Le sigh.

Blackberries!

Sorry for the lull in posting, but not much has been happening in the garden lately. A lot of growing, but not a lot of flowering or fruiting. Oddly all of the baby plums on our tree have vanished but the blackberries are going strong.

Our Yard: Vortex of No Growth?

The most recent signs:

• Our daffodils are just leaves and no blooms while our next door neighbor's daffodils have been blooming for a week.
• The cherry trees in Washington DC are blooming. We have the same variety and it is no where near ready to bloom.

I understand that DC is probably a little warmer (due to being more urban and being slightly further South) than our yard but what is the difference between our flowers and the ones blooming not 3 feet away in the neighbor's yard? Even ones that get the same sun exposure are not blooming. Perplexing.

Greenwood Nursery Woes

Last year we ordered a few plants from Greenwood Nursery and were pleased with the experience. They sent the plants right out and they came back this year. So it made sense that when we wanted to buy some plants for the yard this year, we'd use them again. This year we bought golden raspberries, a pussy willow tree and some cold hardy hibiscus. We placed the order over the winter and the deal was that they sent it to us when it was safe to plant in our zone. They sent them a little early, but we have an enclosed porch, so they were okay and we had a place to put them.

The first problem we had was that they had sent us less hibiscus than we ordered. This was troublesome, but when we notified them of the problem, they sent more to us and they actually looked better than the ones we received in the first place.

The second problem we have had is with the golden raspberries. We ordered 6 bushes. They told us that they would arrive looking like sticks but to plant them and they would be fine. They looked dead but we believed them and followed their instructions and waited for them to grow. And waited and waited. We kind of half wondered if they were just slow growing (it has been sort of unseasonably cool this year) but when we went to Matt's parent's house in the slightly colder Staten Island and saw that their (red) raspberry bushes had leaves and were quite large we really started to think ours were just dead.

So when we got back to town, Matt contacted Greenwood to tell them that the raspberries weren't coming up. They said to wait until a month had passed. We contacted them again on May 22nd and said that the sticks are clearly dead and that we want new plants quickly, before it is too late to plant*. They responded that we'd have to pay $12.50 shipping for the replacement plants. Which annoyed me but we went ahead and paid. And heard nothing until Matt contacted them again today. Now they are saying the replacement plants are shipping out this Thursday, May 31. Which means we probably won't get them for another week or so. Which will make it very late in the season for planting raspberries. I am pretty disgusted by the whole thing. We ordered the plants super early so we could plant them on time. Then they died and Greenwood totally brushed us off until it is really late in the season for planting. Plus they made us pay for shipping, which I thought was unnecessary. Is it my fault they sent us dead plants? $12.50 isn't a huge amount of money but I hate to lay out additional money for a product I've already paid for. I worry that they won't do well this year and then will die over the Winter and we will have to deal with them again next Spring.

Do you see raspberry plants? Nope, me neither.

*Just as a rough guide, the blackberry plant I picked up at Home Depot this Spring and planted around the same time as the raspberries has already flowered and is starting to berry.