Tomatoes and Late Summer Joys

The late summer weather continues to be sunny, warm and beautiful! Jack Frost has kindly been absent, although he came close a few nights this past week! I was playing Russian Roulette of sorts and did not cover anything until last night. I thought that I had gotten luck up until then and didn't want to push my luck once again.

We got home just before 8:00 pm Sunday night and it seemed to be cooling off quite quickly, so I dragged most of my flower pots from the open part of the deck up against the house. Then I covered the tomato plants that were in pots against the wall on the outside of the greenhouse with old sheets and towels, and also covered 4 of the half barrels of flowers and the flower boxes on the deck landing.

Next I threw a sheet over my gorgeous tall orange and yellow Firebird Dahlia in my stack stone bed as well as one Lemon Boy tomato plants in the veg. garden (which still had a lot of ripening fruit on it), one zucchini plant and a few Swiss Chard.  I ran out of covers at that point, so the rest I figured were on their own...

Mother Nature was kind once again and nothing had been zapped by Monday morning.

This is the first year that I have planted Zinnias and I am so impressed with them! At first they were dwarfed by the Lavatara, but I fertilized then a couple of times and they finally did sprout up tall and beautiful.

As I mentioned, the Lavatara that I grew from seed bloomed profusely, but they have all but gome to seed now as I stopped deadheading them a while back.

Note to self: Continue to deadhead future Lavatara till the beginning of September.

My little Gazanias which I grew from seeds are just about to (finally) bloom now! The plants that I had bought have been blooming for 2 months already! I guess some plants are not worth trying to grow yourself. :(

As mentioned above, my most beautiful flowers now in mid September are:
Firebird dahlia
Annual tall double Cosmos ( in a variety of pinks with interesting curly petals)
Rocket Mix (tall) snaps (many grown from last years seeds)

Cosmos

My Morden roses still have a bloom or two but my tea rose 'Peace' growing in a pot in the greenhouse has had the most long stemmed gorgeous yellow and pink edged blossoms this summer!
Unfortunately it is not a Zone 3 rose and so likely would not survive the winter out in my flower bed like the hardy Morden roses do. I think I will cut it back, spray it for aphids and overwinter it in a pot in my living room. Maybe it will perform well again next year... :)

Cosmos

Snapdragons

Tomato Contest Winner:

The latest plant itself is the Super Sensation growing in the greenhouse, but it had few actual tomatoes on it. The Early Girl growing in a pail outside the greenhouse itself has the most ripe tomatoes on it.
The yellow Lemon Boy tomato plants have all ripen yellow tomatoes and the one with the most fruit overall is the smaller plant in the vegetable garden, although most are still green. The early girls have out ripened any of the other plants. The Black Krim heirloom tomato plants have not done very well in that department this year. We got a few ripe purpley/red tomatoes off them, but not as many as in previous years.

So I declare the tomato winners to be the Early Girl variety once again! :)

Yellow Black-eyed Susans and pink Lavatara

 My Black-eyed Susans are 3 to 4 years old now and looking really gorgeous at this time of year. They are finally filling out and spreading and next year I will be able to dig up and transplant some to other locations.

Self-seeded sunflowers

The sunflowers have been sprouting up all over my stack stone bed thanks to the sloppy birds and maybe the Marmots that were frequenting the nearby feeder.  'Someone' has been coming and knocking them over, then eating the seeds out of them as well.  The only reason that the deer have not eaten them completely is thanks to the Bobbex spray I have been putting on every 2 to 3 weeks all summer.

Purple Echinacea (coneflower)

Like my Black-eyed Susans, my purple echinacea clumps have also grown and again, it took about 4 years to get them to this stage, after many failed attempts. (I tried growing the White Swan variety, but without much success. They rarely over-wintered here in our zone 3 climate.)

Pond Lily

 My pond lily has grown well after I put some fertilizer sticks in the pot with them. Unfortunately it did not bloom this year. I guess I should try a blooming type of fertilizer stick next time, one with a high nitrogen ( middle number) instead of the Tomato spikes that I had used... Live and learn!

Gigantic Swiss Chard, spaghetti squash plant on left

Tuesday - Wed. Sept 18/19, 2012

Jack frost did pay us a visit last night. Yesterday evening we paid attention to the frost warning on the weather forecast and did cover as much as possible.