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.

Blackberry Season!

It is harvest time! We've been harvesting nearly 2 cups a day from our single bush. Matt bought a net meant for ponds to cover the bush and it worked better than the tree/bush net we had last year at keeping out birds.

Figs!

Figs are growing on the tiny (under 2 ft) fig tree that we planted this May. Very surprising.

In bloom!

The front yard is looking good! This was tiny (and pink!) last year but it has really grown and is now sort of pinky-purple.

Planting

Planted fairytale eggplant, a Rugters tomato and habanero, jalapeno, scotch bonnet, poblano and carmen peppers today in the space near the house where the pond used to be. I hope they do well! I am also hoping that the fairytale eggplant's small size will prevent it from doing what has happened to every other eggplant we've planted: flopping over with the fruit ending up sitting on the ground after a storm or big wind. Then they never ripen properly and I at most get 1 eggplant per plant.

In other news, the blackberry bush continues to double in bulk every week. By next year I think I will be able to pick blackberries from our bedroom in the second floor.

Blackberry Bush Blooming!

I thought it was May flowers?

I'd take a picture of how tremendously overgrown our yard is but I don't want to shock or alarm any children who might come across this. It has gone way beyond dachshund height and is creeping up to whippet height in most places. But! It isn't our fault. There has been nary a day without rain in over 2 weeks and the few patches of sunshine we have were not enough to dry out our swampy backyard. Even one rain storm takes a few days to recover from, much less weeks of rain. It has been sunny today but now it looks like rain again so who knows when the lawn will be cut.

In good news, we went to Market Day and picked up several varieties of hot peppers, tomatoes and fairy tale eggplants. I am hoping the eggplants diminutive size will be an asset. Perhaps they will ripen more quickly than their larger relatives? Whenever we would grow regular sized eggplants they'd get big then we'd have a big storm or heatwave and they'd droop and never recover. Tomatoes we've had mixed luck with in the past but I have hopes for some new locations this year. Hot peppers grow wonderfully in the yard, we end up with more than we know what to do with.