First Day of SUMMER in SW Wisconsin - it’s been raining since 3pm. It is currently 57 degrees!
After barn chores I took a shower and then put on leggings and a sweatshirt.
I’m TRYING to grow tomatoes here; they are not in the LEAST bit happy. :(
Global Warming my Aunt Fanny! ;)
I’ll be honest. I’m not sure if my tomatoes are happy or not. All I can tell is that they weren’t shriveled and dry when I got home. Everything DID get bigger!
It was 78 or 79, at 2:00, sorta cool...... Now, 9:52....67F Astronomical Twilight, its actually chilly. (Beets are happy and have not dried out. Still have peas! Potatos have not died from the heat! (I grew them for the challenge and for practice.) Bags with sweet potatoes are not happy. Tomatoes are pretty happy and have set fruit. Basil is very happy! Melons and Butternut Squash are getting ready to start running. Not a typical KS summer.
Note re Japanese Beetles. They supposedly do not like red Cedar. I cut back my Plum trees and mulched around them with red cedar and so Far have only seen 2 Japanese Beetles. Might be something to try. If it works let people know! (I intend to spray them with a dilute Red Cedar oil soulution at some point anyway.)
BLUEBERRY BUCKLE
Gild the lily w/ lavish garnish of blueberry pie filling.
Ing: 1/2 c butter 3/4 c sugar 1 egg 1/2 c milk 2 tsp b/powder 1/2 tsp salt 2 c flour 2 1/2 c blueberries
Method: Cream butter/sugar. Add egg, milk, b/powder, salt, mix well. Stir in flour, cup at a time. Fold in berries. Bake in greased 9" square, Topping sprinkled over evenly 375 deg 40-50 min.
TOPPING: 1 c ea dk brown sugar, flour 1/2 c butter 1 tsp cinnamon. Mix crumbly w/ pastry cutter.
My tomato plants’ heat (race to production) seems to be a sort of tie: I now have a Patio Tomato plant, a Golden Jubilee*, and an overwintered Mortgage Lifter, that have all produced fruits well blushed, and I picked them early this morning.
*Bizarrely, the Golden Jubilee fruit looks all wrong: The shape is wrong, the fruits are small, and the color already looks to be headed to red, not “golden”. Have I purchased mislabeled plants by “Bonnies” 2 years in a row? There’s no way I mislabeled it — that plant was the only one I transplanted that day, and it went straight from the store / 4” pot to the big pot it is in now, along with the (Bonnies) label from the 4” pot, which label is still there... Well, I do have other (younger) Golden Jubilees to transplant soon, that I started from seed. I’d just bought that one, as it seemed particularly far along, at Menards, to get some early production. Well, it seems I have, but...
The Patio plant also had a bit of an unfair advantage, as it was another plant from Menards that seemed unusually far along compared to its buddies. It actually has the biggest fruits, at present: It seems to be happy so far in just a 3 gallon pot. The Mortgage Lifter is in the ground - I only have one pot big enough for one of those, and it’s occupied by a “this year” ML that is doing ok but is of course months away from even setting fruits.
The Early Girls really slowed down during out hot spell a few days ago, and don’t seem to have quite oicked the pace back up. That surprised me a little, but, maybe it shouldn’t.
To ripen these fruits as quickly as possible, I’ve put them in sandwich bags (a bag for each type tomato, but not sealed) and then in an overall (sealed) gallon bag. The idea is to keep them in a high concentration of ethylene gas. Right now they are on the kitchen counter - I guess I “could” put them on top of the fridge, as it gets warm, but not hot. I also guess if I had one I could put a green banana in there with them, as ripening bananas emit lots of ethylene gas if permitted to. Then watching for excessive humidity in the bags might be even more important? Possibly the outer bag should be paper, but then I can’t just look over while making scrambled eggs or what not, to check the tomatoes. :-)