On to the Garden! - My regular tomatoes

Okay what I'm going to do for a few posts is have a different post for each plant in my garden so that I won't have to do one big whopping post for the whole entire thing. This post will focus on my regular tomatoes.

My regular tomatoes are doing great, however I've noticed that many of them have large cracks in them where it looks as though they have burst open. This might be because they got too much water- and they probably split when they started to be watered by timer rather than me doing it by hand. It's okay though. While they don't look very visually pleasing, it doesn't really affect the inside of the tomato unless ants or some other bug tries to eat it. Each tomato plant has lots of fruit on it, maybe about 15 tomatoes each. Two of my plants are starting to grow tall, and another two aren't growing tall at all because I accidently cut off the tops of them thinking they were suckers. (oops!) But that's okay, I probably don't need more tomatoes at this point.

When I came back from my trip, one of the tomatoes was falling over in its cage and was being supported by my old big sunflower. I went to Lowes and bought some more wooden stakes which have become lifesavers. Tomato cages can only help so much.

I've added stakes into the ground to support my plants. This is my before picture where I stuck the stakes in but haven't tied anything to them yet.

Here you can see where I started to tie up the tomatoes.

I've already had a few of the large tomatoes ripen, however one I threw away due to pesky insects, and the other is in the fridge and I confess I haven't tried to eat it yet, but maybe I will tonight. Here are some pictures of the tomatoes I have on the vines:

One of my (new) roommates mentioned she tried to grow tomatoes once but apparently the birds kept taking bites out of them. I haven't had any problems with the birds eating my tomatoes at all- which has kind of surprised me.

Words I misspell

Did I spell misspell right?

Without the aid of microsoft words spellcheck, I would be a horrible speller. In fact I'm probably making dozens of mistakes right now because I'm not using it to type this out. But I've noticed that I continue to misspell the same words continually no matter how many times I see them written out. Finally I decided that I would make a list of all these words just for fun. Here are the words in their misspelt fashion:

1. recomended

2. dissappear

3. proffessor

4. liscence / lisence

5. milennium

6. wierd (I mean I always thought it was I before E except after C, you know??)

7. neccessarily

8. dissappointed

9. moniter

10. docter

11. seperates / seperate

12. definately / definitly

13. recognise (now that I google this, it appears to be spelled okay? I'm not sure now.)

14. occasionaly

*I should also note that for some reason when I was younger, I used to spell catalog as catalogue. I don't think that wore off until the end of highschool.

When I look at that list, half of those words look right to me. I have problems with using multiple letters in succesion.....succsession...wait........succession. ARGH! like cc's, epe's, ff's, and ss's. I don't expect to ever start spelling these correctly. But I just wonder if anyone else has the same problem with them like me. Don't worry though, I NEVER spell 'lose' as 'loose' and I'm proud of at least that accomplishment. I also say the proper 'anyway' instead of 'anyways,' due to my friend teasing me about it in highschool. However, do make the grammatical mistake of saying 'on accident' rather than the correct 'by accident.'

After researching the on/by accident issue, I found an interesting website that lists a lot of spelling and grammatical errors.

I'M BACK!

I'm back from the lovely NC where I had a terrific time with friends and family. The weather there was a tad hot, but after living in super HOT Arizona, I was fine with it and I even welcomed the humidity. When I first moved to the East Coast, I really hated humidity and it took me many years to appreciate its positives. I hate humidity for messing up my hair when I try to keep it straight, but I love it for keeping my skin soft and smooth. Arizona dryness gives me lots of wrinkles and I felt like I shed off a few years in my face when I went home. Humidity also makes it easier to breathe. But anyway....on to the good stuff!

Yes, the garden is still alive. However, since I have been gone it has become a jungle out there. It will take me a long time to blog about it- and probably many posts, because there is so much to say. While I compile everything, first I will spend tonight writing about something that I wasn't expecting when I came to North Carolina this summer. That is. . . .

THIS.

It looks creepy right? It's a cicada. BUT not just any cicada. Of course I'm used to the cicadas that pop out every summer and leave their shells on tree branches, but those are different. They are common and typical. However this particular cicada has been waiting underground for 13 years before emerging.

Here's the story: I went home and when I got out of the car I heard this odd, extremely loud sound. Honestly it sounded like a UFO was about to land. The sound was high pitched and didn't sound at all like cicadas. I asked my dad what it was and he told me that it is the sound of the 13 year cicadas and I was completely astonished. Can you believe that insects will live underground for 13 whopping years only to finally emerge, mate and die? All within a few days and weeks? It's wild to think that their entire existence revolves around them mating and dying and then waiting another 13 years. From what I've heard, there are 17 year cicadas as well. That's so crazy!! My dad told me that earlier the sound was much louder- even deafening and at first they had no idea what it was. (My family has only lived in NC since 1999- so we narrowly missed the last time they were there which was in 1998.)

I just couldn't get over it. As I walked around outside there were holes everywhere in the ground where the cicadas had popped out (my moms friend said she was walking her dog when she happened to see a patch of ground where the cicadas were practically pouring out of!), there were many dead ones lying on the ground, others flying weakly away from me as I walked about. On the trees were many empty shells they had shed, still stuck in place on leaves and twigs.

Although I was only in NC for a week and a half, already towards the end of my trip the sound they were filling the air with had cut in half and it wasn't as loud. Most of them had died and in another week or so they will probably be all gone. It will be another long 13 years.

Now for the pictures:

An empty shell.

Lots of empty shells.

Holes in the ground where the Cicadas have emerged.

Okay now brace yourself, because you might find these pictures gross and/or disturbing. But I went to the backyard where I saw a bunch of grubs feasting on a plant. A closer look reveal that they are probably the cicada larvae that have hatched already. I guess they need to eat a lot before they go into the ground!

GROSSS! haha!

Here are some youtube videos where you can hear the sound they make:

Leaving for a Wedding and a vaycay!

Wednesday I'll be flying to NC for my little brothers wedding. I'm very excited! And I'm also so busy that I think I probably won't be able to accomplish much of anything that I originally wanted to before I leave. So...sorry, no pictures this time! I thought about maybe bringing my laptop and blogging while at the airport, but I found out that the airports I'll be stopping in don't have free internet, so that's a no-go.

I'm pretty upset about my cherry tomatoes because a few weeks ago I rigged up the self timer to do all of the work and as I probably talked about, they were getting plenty of water. (Even more than enough) However, now I've tested it again and they aren't getting enough at all. Soooo... I think that my Cherry tomatoes will probably die while I'm gone. I'm going to tell my roommates to water them if they can, but I'm 80% positive that they probably won't. It's okay though, because I've gotten a lot of produce from them and I think I'll sneak a big bag on the plane and bring them home to my family. It's sad to think about the poor things dying, but they are just plants and they aren't people. (sometimes this is hard to remember)

I had more than 10 zucchini's in the fridge and I've shredded them up and put them in the freezer. I found one super large zucchini that was way overgrown, shredded it up, and put it in the compost. I made zucchini bread and it turned out great! So the zucchini is all taken care of and probably won't pollinate itself while I'm gone. Although it will be very frustrated because of this, I am sure. Some of my larger cherry tomatoes are getting ripe, but I'm going to put them in the closet maybe. (YES, the closet. LOL- more on this when I come back) I might have to try and bring back some eggplants with me as well.

Okay, just wanted to give you guys a heads up. I'll be gone for a week and a half, and I'll try to sneak a post or two in in the meantime. C-Ya!

The Usual Garden Update!

Sorry for a lack of weekend post. Things got super busy over the weekend and I had very little time to accomplish much of anything. So here is the standard garden update post! So, the biggest change is that I went to Lowes and bought a drip hose...or rather a "spray" hose. It doesn't drip water, but sprays it out along various intervals on the hose. I figured with a hose that sprays water, I can tell just how much water my garden is getting.

Then, I went to walmart and bought this digital watering timer:

It has a 4 1/2 star review on Amazon, so I figured it must be worth it. I haven't hooked it up yet, but I've programmed it already. I've tried to hook up my drip hose to my cherry tomatoes, but so far it gives them way more water than they need, while the rest of the hose gives the garden just enough. Soooo when I leave for a week and a half to go home for my little brothers wedding, my tomatoes will probably get way too much water. That's okay, but for now I'm going to water them all by hand so they don't die BEFORE I leave!

So here is a break down of each of my plants:

Cherry Tomatoes-My four cherry tomatoes are all doing well, and in fact, they have produced more than this:

Yep, that's a big bag of cherry tomatoes right there! And I CAN'T eat them all by myself! The sad part is, none of my roommates want to eat them either. One doesn't like tomatoes, and the rest of them seem completely uninterested in eating/picking them as well as my zucchini. Kind of sad, but it's the truth. So far I've only been able to get my roommate to put some cherry tomatoes in a pasta salad she made for a party we had on friday.

They produced tons of fruit but now they are slowing down a teensy bit. It's been kind of difficult keeping them upright, especially as I've moved them around. They've grown well beyond the limits of their metal support cages.

As you can see, I had to put in a wooden stake to keep them from falling completely over.

Peppers:My peppers have grown in size, but they still haven't produced any fruit, so I don't really have a positive outlook for them. But they do provide some greenery! Next time I will grow them in pots and in a finer soil.

Eggplants:

My eggplants are doing great, despite being overrun by the zucchini. I'm going to have to go outside and tame back the zucchini leaves after I write this...but I have at least 4 eggplants growing on my plants and I'll post pictures of them when I harvest them I guess.

Zucchini:
My zucchini is growing like mad, and produces fruit IF I pollinate it, because nothing else does. Right now I've got like 8 zucchinis in the fridge that nobody will eat but me. I've tried to convince friends to take them away, but nobody has yet.

All this and MORE!

I guess I thought that I'd be able to eat all of my zucchini by myself. I stubbornly refused to believe that I could have more than I needed. Well I was wrong, I have way too much! But on the bright side, I'm saving lots of money by growing my own! I think they are at like a dollar something a pound right now at the store.

Sunflowers:
My "original" sunflowers have died, but they continue to sprout extra flowers on their stems. So I end up getting like 3 or four flowers on each sunflower stem. It's really interesting because I thought that sunflowers just have one big flower and that's it! Here are a few pictures of them:

Multiple flowers on one stem!

Big Sunflower 2.0



Frankenstein Sunflower!!!

I took a close look at my oldest sunflower, dug it up and inspected it. The seeds have dried out and it looks like this:

There was a red bug hiding on it along with two smaller ones. I'm not sure if it was looking for a partner or was protecting eggs or something. Either way it kind of creeped me out. I don't know why, but for some reason I guess it makes me think of a bedbug! =(

A closer view of the strange resident of the dead sunflower. It lived on the sunflower while it was alive, and then I noticed even after I dug it up that it was still on the dead sunflower a few days later. I'm kind of sorry I destroyed its home!

It certainly didn't have a lot of seeds, but it was interesting nonetheless!

Here you can see my largest sunflower leaning against my tomatoes. The seeds are starting to form!

Tomatoes:

My two cherry tomatoes that are planted next to my large sunflower might be cross pollinating with my regular tomatoes, because.....their fruit is becoming extremely large. The tomatoes are still arranged like regular cherry tomatoes, but each one is about the size of a golf ball. ALSO, my cherry tomatoes are almost nearly as tall as myself. They are REALLY tall. Like vines almost...and so far they are the tallest plant in my garden, even taller than my old sunflower. I've had to build them a major support cage. Here is some of their fruit:

They are REALLY big in real life. Larger than normal cherry tomatoes should be.

Here you can see two huge strands.

A picture of both our shadows. As of publishing this entry, it is pretty much up to my shoulders and has shown no signs of stopping yet!

My other regular tomatoes have a ton of big fat juicy tomatoes on them, however they are not growing so high. Here is a picture of some of their fruit:

Here is a side view of my garden:

There you can really see just how overgrown my zucchinis are becoming. Sorry for the shadow and the glaring sun, but this is arizona! We had a party on Friday night and one of our guests was pretty impressed with my zucchini. He seemed a little amazed that I haven't had any major pests (like squash bugs or cane bores). I'm pretty surprised too, and glad because it makes taking care of them so easy. Well, that's all for now!

Seeing Pink!

I have realized that in the past 21 months that I have lived in my apartment, I've lived with 6 roommates who have now moved out. 21 months divided by 6 equals 3.5. So roughly every 3.5 months then I could possibly expect to have a roommate move out. This means that if I live here for another two years, then I can expect to have another 6-7 roommates move in and out. The number could be more or less.

Which brings me to yet another point, the issue of roommates taking my things accidentally during the move-out process. Many people out there are not aware of what items belong to them and so when kitchen items become jumbled together, they lose track of what is theirs and what is not. Thus when they move out, the "Mahalo Mentality" as I will put it, comes into play. The Mahalo Mentality is the idea that if you go over to somebodies house and you take off your shoes, when you decide to go home then instead of taking your own shoes, you trade up to someone elses shoes that may be cuter or nicer. Basically you trade up. So what happens is for example, a roommate will see a nice kitchen utensil that they think is theirs when in fact, theirs is the cheaper or uglier utensil. They do it subconsciously I think. After all, who would grab the soiled oven mitts or the partially melted spatula when they have the opportunity not to?

Most of my items are safe in my own designated areas, but pretty much everything in the kitchen is communal. WHICH I'm okay with people using my stuff. However, if you move out of this house with my stuff, I will come and hunt you down. I get REALLY upset when people take my things. I'm more aware than most of what items are mine and often when I try to remember, I mark things with my name. Permanent marker eventually fades away with use, but I've also thought about trying nail polish. Somebody told me that they marked their things with nail polish and it doesn't come off. So that is an option for consideration.

The other idea of mine would be more expensive, but I think very effective. That is, to buy nothing but PINK kitchen items! Sounds like it could work, right? And in this day and age, this is a perfectly feasible plan because of the whole Susan G. Komen/Breast cancer awareness color that they market so much stuff with. Let me tell you, I have seen just about everything in pink for that cause. Do you think that Sanrio has made a Hello Kitty version of everything? They pretty much have, and the same goes for Breast Cancer awareness- you can find SO much pink stuff in stores now. Just google breast cancer products and you'll find tons of strange stuff. Here are some examples:

Breast Cancer Awareness Sprinkles:



From Crumbs Bake shop



Cat food:

From Purina

KFC Chicken buckets:

A cement mixer:

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HOLD UP you might say! BUT Hello Kitty has her own airplane!! Well guess what? I present to you:
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Courtesy of Delta

Okay so I have no problems with all this stuff being branded with the cure. And in fact, it only helps me out because I can find anything I need for the kitchen in a pink color and that way, all of my roommates (provided they are not blind) will know that everything pink is mine. So I did a bit of online window shopping and here is what I've found:

Measuring spoons

cookware











Trash

Flour containers



Blender



 











Pots

Kitchen timer

Tongs

ice cream scoop

Popcorn popper!

mixer



Food processor!



Ice Cream Maker!

Knives



Utensils

Oi, sorry about the layout, but you can blame the new blogger layout for being a pain to use. BTW, you can find all of this stuff on Amazon. There's a whole lot more, but I don't have the patience to deal with Bloggers limited capabilities.

But... You get the idea, right? And I'm sure people would be wary to use anything pink, since they would automatically know it's mine. I think that once all my stuff wears out, I'm really going to buy everything in pink if I know I'm going to room with people again because it will be such a moneysaver. Good idea?