I’m so jealous
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Me too, while I’m on vacation they picked these nice melons.
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My fave black tomato so far is the Paul Robeson, has smoky undertones and so juicy.
Midnight Snack -not heirloom - cherry tomato, has a funky black top and red bottom and I don’t mind buying those seeds b/c they’re so great-tasting
Had bad luck with some other black tomatoes this year - drought/high temps kept yield down and then torrential rains cracked most of them. But I usually enjoy Cherokee Carbon and Black Krim. Tried Anais Noir and Black Beauty and they were so promising before the weather crushed my hopes.
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Out of my new to me varieties, Cosmonaut Volkov and Altai Orange were the clear winners for deck container gardening. DB Cooper and Sovietsky did not live up to my expectations, unfortunately. Of the cherry varieties, Kahuku Gold was the clear favorite of our grands. They picked the bush clean! 
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Facebook has detected my desire (based on posts here) to plant some garlic. Today I had this article in my FB feed. Tis a good reminder, since I did not get to the farmer’s market this weekend to buy starter garlic.
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You’ve sold me on Altai Orange! But I can’t find any seeds when I google; would you mind sharing your source for seeds? I found something similar—Amana Orange—I’m guessing they’re related but not exactly the same?
I bough my seed here:
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They are listed here as heirloom tomatoes, whether they are true or not.
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Since the garden season is winding down for some of us, it’s also a good time to research and learn! I thought some of you might enjoy watching The Black Forager - she is on Instagram and Tik Tok - not sure about FB. She is SO smart, SO interesting, SO funny - I learn so much from watching her!
She is a 2022 James Beard award winner. She lives in Columbus, Ohio!
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Helpful tomato discussion. I was thinking about ordering some Altai Orange tomato seeds at Renaissance and saw the $5 flat shipping fee. I added some kale seeds to the cart too and will think more on what else to order.
Just watched the Black Forager videos above… very fun!
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Wow, she is amazing. Thanks for sharing! I will definitely check out more of her videos.
I am starting to clean up the garden and today I picked probably 100 gourds. It was crazy out there! I plan to set them by the driveway with a free sign on them. Last of the tomatoes and peppers are picked. The tromboncino squash is still producing (enough!). Chard is still growing.
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My tomato plants still look green and healthy and productive, but cucumbers and zucchini are definitely done. Eggplants still have multiple flowers out and will produce a few small ones for picking later in the week. We are getting record high temperatures this week, 80 or close to it. There is a chance of rain midweek which my yard will appreciate. I don’t recall a September this nice in a long while.
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Last weekend we had a heatwave in our city, our daughter picked a very large watermelon, this morning she texted me a picture of it cut in half, nice and red. The irony is when I plant my watermelon from seeds I had nothing bigger than a football, but when it came from my compost, it’s huge and long, and tasty. But I was not around to sample it.
However, I can see my peas are coming up, as some of my arugula and radish seeds.
Zucchini is now dead and gone. Not sure about tomatoes.
What are your favorite heirloom roses? Mine are Comte de Chambord and Souvenir de la Malmaison.
But looking at some new roses online, I’m glad I ordered Jubilee Celebration, I hope mine will do well this coming year, last year was the first year so it didn’t have massive blooms.
Silver star. My favorite roses are from David Austin. But they are near impossible to order and actually get. Sometimes I’ll get a tiny twig together with a good size bush and all will be the same price.
This year, I am going to focus on climbing roses. Going to have the shed covered and then do a couple alongside the garage and up.
Our yard was nicely landscaped when we bought it but doesn’t have enough bright flowers IMO. I’m also going to plant a lot of peonies (my favorite). In our last house, they were in a large area and mixed in color, it was beautiful.
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Silver Star is a Kordes rose from my googling, it’s a gorgeous color, I love Kordes rose too, in fact I love a lot of roses, that’s why I have 160 roses. I know what you mean about DA roses, I had to special order 3 more old DA roses from Freedom gardens, one of them in Potter and Moore, and older Austin rose.
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I have about 60 DA roses. But they are sparse since we moved in only a few years ago and couldn’t get decent sizes during Covid. I’m trying to plan them color and size wise. It’s a long-term plan.
I was inspired by a recent trip to Ireland. The gardens were just fantastic. I loved all the ornamental hedges but not the thought of taking care of them. I saw some lovely little boxwoods that only grew to about a foot. I was thinking of pulling out all the boxwood hedges I have (a lot!) and replacing them with the tiny ones. But my husband said he likes them. Oh well.
These are a little above my ambition level. But so lovely.
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I read that a nearby innovative small farming operation puts compost on the ground and plants seeds in the compost. I’m not sure of the mechanics of it, but I pictured rows of compost laid out prior to planting.
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Watermelons are heavy feeders. Next time you plant the seeds, dig a big hole and fill it with compost, manure, etc and then plant right on top of that. The watermelon roots will grow down into this goodness and reward you with big fruit.
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