Dirt Therapy

It takes a while for tomatoes to start producing here. Unless you have a greenhouse or a place to start them early, the ground isn't really ready for planting until late May or even June. This year our tomatoes began to ripen a little earlier than last year but it was still August. Once they begin, though, stand back and get ready to harvest.  I planted five plants this year in our raised beds - two regular-sized varieties (the inevitable 'Early Girl' and 'Big Boy') and three smaller ones ('Sungold', 'Grape' and 'Patio'). The smaller varieties have performed the best and 'Sungold' is our favorite. 'Early Girl' is producing nicely but for some reason, only grew to about two feet and refuses to get higher. 'Big Boy' is a huge bush with lots of fruit but very slow to reipen. I like to grow tomatoes but I am not really a big fan of eating them. Michael loves them and says he could live off tomato sandwiches. As a ch...

August has always been my least favorite month of the year. I have to say though that August in the Pacific Northwest is nowhere near as bad as it was in Alabama. We just got over a long hot spell (about a week of 90+ temps) but it is now back in the low 70s. Yesterday was overcast and cool, the weather I really love, and I spent most of the day working on the monster English Laurel hedge along our border.  I hope the hot weather is gone but we are having more insulation put in our ceiling this week in an effort to cool our house a bit better. We do have AC but our house is not shaded yet and the poor unit runs non-stop on those hot days. The flowers for August, despite the heat and drought (we have also had 55 days with no rain whatsoever) look great and I am amazed at what all is in bloom. Michael has been really great about weeding and keeping the containers fertilized. The Pan statue (right) took a while to get going good but it now looks great with petunias, sweet po...

Two great gardens in Portland on the Open Gardens Tour this week - Nancy Goldman and just two houses down, Deborah Myers. Myers' garden was not listed in the directory and for a while, my friend Rebecca and I thought that we were in Nancy's garden until a fellow visitor cleared it up for us. Good thing as we would probably not have ventured down to Nancy's garden had we not known this. Anyway, two great gardens on one visit.  First, the garden of Deborah Myers - No w, on to Nancy Goldman's garden.