Plenty of Rain

 We are enjoying another much needed rainy day.  Things have cooled off a lot so the central air can be turned off and the windows can be open for fresh air.  As usual, when I am not patrolling my garden several times a day, things slip through the cracks.  It is tempting to pick up this Early Girl branch right away, but a cool, damp stem will be more susceptible to bacteria and viruses if you touch it and scrape it up.  This can wait until tomorrow when the plant is dry.

An inspection of the stem shows that it is bent but not even cracked.  I can fasten it to a support pole and the tomatoes can ripen on the vine.  It is tempting to just remove it, which should also wait until tomorrow.  I have PLENTY of tomatoes elsewhere.  Huge tomatoes.

It is interesting to note that on each row of tomatoes, the foliage is more dense on the east side and the fruit is more plentiful and exposed on the west side.  Perhaps the plant grows towards the morning sun but the blooms emerge in the late day sun?

Pike County Yellow

Berkley Tie-Dye Green

Black Beauty

I already tasted the first Black Beauty.  It wasn't black at all.  It was hidden in the thick foliage at the bottom of the plant where it got no direct sun to color it up.  I caught a glimpse of red as I walked by.

Dwarf Peppermint and Black Beauty

I also picked some Dwarf Peppermint.  Both were excellent tasting with no hard center core and a great texture.  I am having difficulty determining when the Peppermint is ripe because it maintains green shoulders.  You have to go completely by feel.  It is time consuming feeling all of these new striped tomatoes each day!  

Tomorrow I will be pickling peppers.  These are a favorite summer treat for us.  The two orange peppers are Orange Blaze.  I was sort of underwhelmed by their size and shape but in retrospect, they are the perfect size for one person.  They are thick walled and sweet and perfect for snacking or a salad.

Another victim of the weight of rain is this Bloomquist Jean Dahlia flower.  I am not sad to lose the flower because the bloom has been open for a good week and it will soon begin to drop petals, but I will probably miss out on the two lateral blooms because dahlia buds rarely open after they are picked.  

This was my one special dahlia purchase during the dahlia wars.  The Bloomquist dahlias are very popular for their turned back petals giving them a very round, muppet like appearance.  They do not produce a lot of tubers and often have to be propagated from cuttings.  This makes them rare, expensive and hard to get your hands on.  I have already preordered the Bloomquist Pumpkin for next year.  Pumpkin was my first choice but Jean was the one I was able to get and I was pleased to find that Jean is actually more orange than I anticipated.  My photography skills do not do dahlias justice.  The true color is an irredescent copper with streaks of gold in the center.  The plant has done well and there are a dozen buds still to open