iechris's Journal

I have been harvesting off the romas for a few weeks now and have made tomato cream sauce with them twice now. I have been wanting to try a roasted tomato sauce and was planning to do that this weekend.

Today I had a huge harvest, 3 1/2 lbs, so I’m changing the plan just slightly and I’m going to make a basic tomato sauce from “Cucina Del Sol” with the older romas and then use the rest of the ones I picked today to make the roasted sauce tomorrow. I think we will be eating pasta with tomato sauce tomorrow night!

I am so pleased that it seems I’ve found the perfect spot for hosta ‘Fire and Ice’. This one can be tricky to grow, something I didn’t kow when I purchased or planted it, but it seems very happy where it is.

My Endless Summer #3 is in a pot while I try to figure out what to do with it long term and I try to scatter these pots out around the yard in a decorative fashion. This particular pot pretty much blocks the side “tunnel” between the shack and the side fence. I think it looks really nice where it is and this was just a lovely combination, with the late afternoon sun lighting up ‘Fire and Ice’.

I have missed getting some pictures of Mattie for a few days and she has been throwing up multiple nice blooms each day. So far, only my large center plant has bloomed, but I did notice a bloom stalk on one of the smaller plants. I think they are doing a lot better now that they are getting watered more often.

My Joe Pye Weed, which is supposed to bloom in late summer, is already budded up. It has grown taller this year than it did last year and I really need to see about staking it.

I got this really nice photo of one of my Harlequin’s blooms lying on a pot of creeping Jenny that is hanging out near by. They look so good together and it was totally and accident. I think I’m going to try to plant one of the small pots of creeping Jenny near the Butterfly Bush.

Two blooms are open on one plant, with a third getting ready to open. They are looking good, but I wish they weren’t facing the wall of the house so much. Oh well…

My alyssum had pretty much been doing not much of anything for a while and had even gone largely out of bloom. I’ve sprayed it a few times with some fertilizer and I don’t know if that has helped, but at least on the left hand side it is really going now. It has almost totally filled in its area and is now blooming really well.

The right side has not taken off as much, though some clumps are starting to bloom again and some of them have increased in size. So far, I’ve been pretty happy with this plant and will probably use it again next year.

I tend to have a lot of problems getting good pictures of white or light colored flowers, so I’m always happy when one turns out. This was taken a few days ago and these blooms are starting to fade, but I have another bloom cluster that is getting ready to open. I had read that ‘David’ is supposed to smell like cloves and went out this evening and sniffed, but didn’t really smell anything. I’ll check again when the new blooms open.

Penny is in her prettiest, bluest phase right now, so I can’t help near daily photos. The rain we got did bend her stem down a bit, but it has rebounded. This bloom just keeping getting prettier!

It is here, the first zinnia bloom of the year! It is a super pretty pink and white bloom. There are several others that are partially open, so I should be seeing and photographing more soon.