Incredible Campari

This tomato was hiding for ten weeks and when found it was in perfect condition!

This morning I had a biggest surprise of my gardening life. OK, so I am gardening only since I retired five years ago, but still.

I was moving a storage cabinet in my basement work shop and out rolled a perfect Campari tomato. Two years ago I collected, fermented and then dried seeds from supermarket tomato because I loved their flavor and size and this was my second season that I have successfully grown them. They are huge producers. (I know that they have registered trademark but I am not selling them.)  

At the end of last September we have collected all tomatoes, including green ones, and stored them in basement. This one must have fallen on the floor and stayed there, on a cold floor, in relative darkness, for ten weeks. TEN weeks! Wow! Next season I’ll try to store them under same conditions: directly on the floor and covered. We’ll see what happens.

By the way, I took concrete floor temperature reading with my infrared thermometer gun and it reads 16°C. The location is close to wall that is insulated only at top four feet. Five feet away the reading was 20°C. It will be interesting to see what happens one year from now and you can be sure that I will harvest seeds from this survivor!

Marjo in my tomato jungle.

Piper in Our Garden

Last September when Marjo’s family was here for my 65^th birthday she surprised me by hiring a Scottish piper from Ingersoll. Funny thing, though. None of our neighbors heard him, none! Nobody heard bagpipes being played no more then 40 yards from their windows.
Thanks, Marjo! It was a thrill!

Winter Solstice

In less then week and half days will be getting longer! Time to get seed catalogs out and start ordering. This is a view from our sunroom. It looks like winter will be long but right now it is raining cats and dogs.

Early Winter Blast

We got blasted with a snowstorm really early this year. It started snowing last Sunday, December 4^th and today, after four days, is a first day that we didn’t get any new snow. And winter is still two weeks away! Ouch, not a good sign.

Good news is that last week I got my first seed catalog from Johnny’s Seeds. Let the garden planning begin!

This year I'm not going to bather to plant herbs from seeds, it’s much better and convenient to buy seedlings from Heritage Line Herbs that is just short drive away. They have an excellent selection, but I’ll be growing seedlings for specialty Oriental greens and veggies. Unless Deb at Heritage Line Herbs will have them next Spring, that is.

Crap, I need more and bigger veggie beds J !

Bougainvillea

My Bougainvillea bonsai started to flower again on October 17th. By Christmas it will be one big mass of red flowers with hardly any green leaves and will stay that way for 6 – 8 weeks. Marjo did a great job by transplanting it into a pot that I made and fired last year. It is a bit bigger then I would like so I guess I have a new winter project making a new one.



First flower is turning red. October 17, 2010

Three weeks later, November 6, 2010

Another 3 weeks have passed. November 27, 2010

December 8, 2010. Little change in last 12 days.

Same tree April 24, 2010.