My tomatoes hate me.

Firstly- Welcome back, Me!

I've been such a slacker with posting, but now that the semester is over (and summer = freedom) I will have much more time to dedicate to writing about my failures at all things gardening.

Mostly tomatoes.

Admittedly, I may have gotten carried away with the tomato repertoire. I planted several varieties, including:

Kelloggs Breakfast
Pink Brandywine
Green Grape
A Grappoli D'Inverno
Roma
Yellow Pear
Sundrop
Brown Cherry
White Cherry
Pink Striped Cherry
Early Girl
Aunt Ruby's German Green

Clearly, I overestimated my ability to care for and/or house this many varieties (don't even get me started on the peppers... that's for another day.) But more than the basic needs of water/food/sunlight/soil, I neglected three very important threats to gardeners everywhere: fungus, disease and BUGS.

Remember those gaudy gorgeous homemade tomato cages I built a few months back? Good thing they're not obstructive to the garden aesthetic AT ALL since they're basically supporting nothing.

6 out of the 8 tomato plants in my tomato bed have stopped growing, 2 are bald stalks with a few sad leaves, and only 1 looks decently healthy. Between my super reliable research (read: not) via Google, I haphazardly took a guess have scientifically deduced that most of the tomato plants are suffering from leaf roll virus. There have also been a few instances of leaf spot and (most recently of all) caterpillars (from HELL.) Caterpillars from the womb of Satan, himself. I swear, I have quickly overcome my aversion to killing any creature since discovering the damage they have inflicted upon my plants. I figure I'm doing next year's garden a solid by preventing them from burrowing down into my soil and creating their devil-coccoons to overwinter in my raised beds. Hell no. (Pun completely intended.)

In other news from only slightly more successful areas of the garden, my container plants are doing better than the ones in the bed. I've been collecting container plants like clinical hoarders collect toothpaste caps and empty raisin boxes (Is that a thing? It is now.) The gnat population has exponentially grown in recent months since they apparently like to co-populate in the loamy soil... which is SUPER awesome. I digress...

Here are some photos, because photos.

Container Kellogg's Breakfast Tomatoes. These are the only two on the entire plant since the leaves are showing evidence of leaf roll, or leather leaf or whatever other pretentious disease they managed to pick up. Teenagers...

After pruning all of my peppers back TWICE, I'm beginning to just now get some fruit. These are purple jalepenos, and I admit that I grew these only for fun. I'll find something to do with them.

I've already had one harvest off of this guy. He is a sweet banana pepper plant and I pickled the first harvest (more on that in a bit.)

This is the Early Girl tomato plant that I purchased as a plant start in February(ish.) I've picked 5 ripe tomatoes off of it so far, and they were perfect. PER. FECT.

Again, this guy got pruned back twice over the last 2 months. This is a Chinese 5-Color Pepper plant, and it's beginning to bloom with a few baby peppers. What are my plans for these super hot peppers? Not a clue. Suggestions are welcome.

My Pepper bed is overrun with grass, you say? Yea. I'm okay with it, since the alternative is to pick the grass out, and I'm feeling particularly lazy as of late. Fighting garden pests is a special kind of damnation. Anyway, the point of this photo is not my shameful lack of weeding- but instead the okra. Isn't it getting huge?? I've pickled over a pound of okra so far.

This is kind of comical. Given the recent 90+ degree heat and intense humidity, 80% of my garden is pouting, stunted and refusing to grow. However, my cabbages (CABBAGES) are still growing every day and have started to produce a head. I can't believe it. These were planted purely for experiment and I didn't expect anything from them. 

Devil Caterpillar damage on my Roma tomato plant. This is only a small section of the damage so far, and right after this photo, I picked a small demon off of the underside of a leaf which he was happily munching (and simultaneously destroying my spirit.) But then...

I placed him on the edge of the garden bed while I looked for more, and this carpenter ant made quick work of him. Well done, my ant friend. I'm sorry for trying to poison you a few weeks ago.

While the leaves look dreadful, I have about a dozen fruit on the Roma plant at the moment. I hope they ripen before they quit on me. 

The borage is liking the tomato bed, however. It's gotten humongous, but has failed in the "attracting pollinators" department. It's sure pushing its luck...

More tomato plant ailments... They aren't doing so hot.

Whyyyyyy? Why do you hate me?

What is left of my sad pathetic spaghetti squash container. The Vine borers did a number on this guy, and while I cut several out, the damage is hard to reverse.

These guys are doing slightly better than the rest of the garden plants. The pickling cucumbers are still producing in decent numbers, but the leaves are yellowing and spotted. I don't know what to do about that. 

Sad, sick tomato bed. Except the flowers. The marigolds and borage are doing fantastically. I hope they're enjoying the $100 in soil amendments.

Not the largest crop, but the kale is STILL ALIVE. That's one in the win column for me.

Ah, the squash plants. Both the yellow straight neck and zucchini have suffered from vine borers also. I have cut out so many larvae and the plants are actually doing decently. Some fresh compost and a bit of organic fertilizer have done a lot for them.

My rose bush! Granted, it's still straggly and battling black spot, but I'm proud I have managed to keep this alive for the past month and a half. It is a Grandiflora variety, and I've been cutting the flowers off while they're buds to bring into the kitchen to open in a jar of water. These flowers bloomed on a day when I didn't particularly feel like being voluntarily stuck with thorns, so they remained.

My happy place. I wish I could take down the tacky plastic fencing, but Miss Millie doesn't understand that the garden beds are not for digging.

Mornings in the garden are my favorite time of day. I usually like to get out here within an hour of the sun rise. As you can see, that didn't happen today.

We have a pomegranate tree sapling as of a few months ago. Did I mention it already? I wonder how long it will be until our first harvest. One year? Two?

Multitasking! I saw some cucumbers that needed picking while I was taking the photos, so my skirt doubled as a basket. I looked ridiculous. Large camera in one hand and skirt in the other. Hello, future pickles.

Speaking of Millie- here is the sweet girl. This is her face when she thinks I'm going to make her go inside. Millie is the sweetest dog I've ever met... and I've met a ton.

This Jubilee watermelon plant is happy in its ten gallon container. I put it on the empty side of my yard so that it has plenty of room to spread out as it pleases. No fruit yet, but many male flowers!

Just to show size. The Kelloggs breakfast tomato plant isn't thriving, but I'm hoping those fruits at least ripen up soon.

More Roma tomatoes...

Sweet potato slips that I started over 2 months ago. It's about time to snip them and root them in new water.

And, like I said earlier, I pickled! The cucumbers were too large to pickle whole, so I opted for spears instead. I used the recipe my Mom's husband's family uses (and has used for generations.) They're of Polish ancestry so they make pickling an annual tradition. All of the family gets together and they create an assembly line. They make about 90 quarts of dill pickles and it lasts the families the whole year. I beg my mother to bring me a jar or two each time she visits (which she so graciously grants) and they don't last more than a few days in my house. I hope these turn out half as good as the Pilecki family pickles. Just a few more weeks until I pop one of these open! (Pictured in rear: pickled okra with banana pepper.)

There are many other plants in the garden (and on the patio) that I have not photographed lately, but I assure you that they're nothing to look at. If you want to see photos of recent mini harvests, go check out my Instagram (OhKayleeBlog)

I promise to update more often.. as long as I'm not busy organizing caterpillar sacrifice rituals to the garden gods.

Dusk in the Garden

I have to admit: I felt a little guilty posting iPhone photos in my post last night. Being a professional photographer, I thought I owed it to my personal blog to make it a bit more decent. Also, it just looks better.

Here's a little more of a peek into what I have planted. I didn't include everything, but close.

Baby Okra plant. I'm assuming those buds have to become flowers before okra, so of course I'm growing impatient.

This bed has a bit of everything. I have 3 types of green beans, cucumbers, sugar snap peas, rainbow swiss chard, kale, mustard greens, collard greens, baby leeks and a few zinnias for good measure.

Baby veggies really are the cutest. This zucchini should be ready to pick soon.

What will eventually take over the garden bed. Young cabbage plant. Yea, I see the slug trails. I'm working on it.

Kentucky Wonder green bean. I love the way these pole beans climb up everything.

My first baby cucumber. This was a particularly exciting find. Already planning pickling methods.

Cucumber tendrils are so needy. They remind me of me with my fiancee. ;)

Ahhh, the tomatoes. This particular variety is called "A Grappoli d'Inverno" and I have no idea what that means.

The tomato bed was a pretty big task. I amended the heck out of it. Before I planted out the seedlings, I worked into the composted soil: 1 lb. cotton seed meal, 1 lb. kelp meal, 1 lb. seaweed fertilizer, and a bunch of earthworm castings with Azomite rock dust. Into each planting hole, I added a cup of garden gypsum and some epsom salts. I was worried about overkill, but the plants LOVE IT. They have grown so big and strong. 

Grew these marigolds from seed, and I'm thrilled that they are blooming. 

Some male spaghetti squash flowers. No female flowers have opened yet, but there is still plenty of time.

Okay. One more okra photo. They're crazy unique to me.

I cannot believe the blue scotch curly kale hasn't waved a white flag in surrender yet. This heat has been crazy, but the kale is still going strong. I hope I can get a harvest or two before it shrivels up in the summer.

I'm not a fan of collard/turnip/mustard greens. Being from New York, I never had cooked southern greens and I didn't care for them when I tried them. However, K loves them, so these mustard greens (and the collard greens behind them) are for her.

Young rainbow swiss chard. The chard isn't growing very quickly, and I'm blaming it on the 85 degree days here in Florida.

Early Prolific yellow straight neck squash. Gonna go harvest these guys today. 

The pepper bed also called for a bit of amending. I only used compost, Azomite rock dust and earthworm castings in here, but it seems to be working out well. Now if only I could keep the aphids off of them...

No. There isn't a prettier herb than basil. I have SO many basil plants because I'm terrified of being without a constant supply this summer. These are about 1/5 of all the basil plants I have right now.

Sick of seeing this cluster of Early Girl tomatoes? Good. GET USED TO IT. (Until I eat them, and then I apologize.)

I generally like banana peppers, but I'm actually growing these to use in the pickling recipe from my Mom's husband's Polish family. They get together once a year to pickle around 100 jars of cucumber pickles and I try to pilfer as many of them as I can.

Overflow of seedlings leads to this. I can't get rid of them, so they live in containers now.

My fiancee is a very patient and forgiving person. ;)

I hope this amends my previous post. I put much more time and effort into it. 

Enjoy the weekend!!