Little prizes

This post is about two weeks old but I was having some problems with Blogger and posting pictures. Not being real computer savvy it took a while to figure it out.

This is the time of year, here, that you start finding the little prizes in your garden that you have worked so hard for. Sometimes it takes looking through the leaves to find them and sometimes they are right out in the open. The beets are all canned and Lyn is constantly picking and canning green beans. We are eating fresh carrots and radishes but there is a lot more. Here's the more.

Burpees Ambrosia has been my favorite cantaloupe for 28 yrs. but I have been trying others the last few years as Ambrosia just doesn't do well for me here. I really gave it a good try but have only gotten a few in some years and none other years. This year I'm trying Stutz from Seeds of Change. It may well be the winner. There are three cantaloupes in this picture.


Watermelons have been about the same as the cantaloupes. Crimson sweet was an excellent performer where we used to live and had a great taste. For some reason it just will not perform here. This year I am trying Dakota Rose. It doesn't look all that good for the watermelons as I could only find five.

Our standard for cucumbers for too long to remember is the Armenian cucumber. It is for eating raw and is almost a cantaloupe it is so sweet. The skin is very thin and tender. It is also the most heat resistant of any cuke that I know of, setting fruit all through the summer.
I would love to try different types of potatoes and have ordered from several sources. No matter what you tell the people on the phone at the suppliers, they will not send the starts to you in time to plant here, they send them when it is time to plant there. Of course that would be way to late to plant here. So-o-o, I just buy the potatoes that McIntyres Nursery sells and plant those. They do pretty good most years and really good some years. This year looks like a really good year. We've been spooning a few taters already. That's what older folks call it. It's where you dig around some of your plants and harvest a few potatoes to eat before your ready to harvest the whole crop. I don't use a spoon though, just my hands. I plant my potatoes on top of the ground and cover with leaves or grass clippings so they are real easy to harvest.


Corn is another one that has come with mixed results but Burpee's Early often has worked the best for us. I don't get the name, it is early but after the pollen has fallen off the heads there will be no more corn. So, I don't know about the often part but we do get several stalks with four ears on a stalk. Not all ears will fill out though. We do get quite a few big ears but I think we could still do better. I like this corn though because it is short and fits raised beds well.


The Bell peppers are really putting on. These are California Wonders.

And the tomatoes, definitely some surprises here. I didn't even take any pictures of my Big Beef as they are doing that poorly. Normally this tomato is the best for me. I started growing them after Texas Gardener magazine recommended it as the best they had tried. It has been great the last few years but I think there is a problem with these. I will write about it later. I always plant Yellow Pear and Sweet Olive tomatoes. Just a couple though. Any more and I wouldn't know what to do with all the little tomatoes. There is over a hundred on one of the Yellow Pears right now.


The big surprise for me is the regular, old, normal, Roma tomatoes. They always do well for us, but not this well. There are over fifty tomatoes on each plant and I have already picked quite a few. Now I wish I had bought more instead of the Big Beefs. They taste wonderful, and being a sauce tomato, they have few seeds and lots of meat. I'm trying to eat all I can before Lyn gets set up to make sauce.

This next tomato is one I am very excited about and yet, it doesn't even have a name. While visiting Italy, a good friend of my sisters, Mary, asked about the tomato sauce that a little restaurant used. They said it was made with their families tomatoes and that was why it was so good. She told the lady she had a gardening friend and the lady gave her some seeds to bring to me. I received them a little late so the plants aren't as big as my others but they are catching up fast. There are only three little fruit on them now and they are interesting to say the least. They have deep creases and a long naval line on the bottom, and seem to be shaping up to be rather flat in shape. Usually this denotes a large tomato, but we will just have to wait and see. This is another case of gardeners anxiety that I talk about from time to time. It's a wonder more of us don't have breakdowns.