Berry Berry Good (Again)

We SURE do enjoy strawberries at The Frog & PenguINN. Nope these are NOT store-bought or even from a local produce market. These are freshly picked from our own small strawberry patch.

Earlier this season, we enjoyed a LOT of fresh strawberries with breakfast every morning. Then, there were none. It looked like  the patch was done for the season. But, in the past couple of weeks new flowers appeared, then green fruit, and now ripe strawberries have started once again.

These were picked today — delicious sprinkled with some sugar and whipped cream for dessert.

Our Garden is Growing

Grenville set up the much smaller F&P veggie garden near the end of May planting doubles of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and cucumbers. While this is not a lot compared to previous years output of squash, beans, corn, beets, and lettuce, these veggies will be more than enough. They'll be supplemented with contributions from a friend’s larger garden, drop-offs that local gardeners leave at the  YMCA, and purchases at a couple of area farmers markets.

This week, we have one green pepper with others on the way. There are blooms on the eggplant (center), tomato (upper right) and cucumber (bottom right) plants.

Grenville is sure looking forward to some fresh 'mater sandwiches soon. I saw him standing in the garden with bread and mayo in hand this week.

How Our Garden Grows . . .

MUCH smaller now when compared to several years ago when the Frog & PenguINN veggie garden took up most of the back yard as “Farmer” Grenville set up 5 large beds.

All that gardening, produced a LOT of fresh vegetables — TOO many for only 2 people. There were giveaways to friends and neighbors and deliveries to out-of-state family members during summer road trips.In recent years, Grenville progressively downsized the garden beds from 5 to 3 and finally to only 2 beds.

For the past couple of years, the F&P veggie garden has been downsized to the footprint of Grenville’s former greenhouse.This year’s garden includes eggplant, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Our larger gardens were fun projects the first couple of years, but required planting, tending, and harvesting — all of which we did. We froze veggies, canned tomatoes and pickles, made salsa, and ate a lot of zucchini dishes; we had a LOT of those veggies, as did other local gardeners who offered some to us.The garden frogs are back  and so are the garden flamingoes . . .This year, friends have planted larger gardens, so we’ve volunteered to relieve them of excess veggies. Also, we make weekend visits to a Saturday Farmer’s Market in the next town which offers a variety of locally grown produce and items such as eggs and honey.

Anyone else planting a veggie garden, large or small ?

What’s (Still) in the Garden?

Yes, the calendar reads October here too, but the weather here on the VA eastern shore resembles more like summer. This week several days have been VERY warm with daytime temps in the mid-80s and a humidity index that’s even higher.
This heat wave has kept veggies producing in the Frog & PenguINN garden.

The garden caretaker gnome and frog keep watch over the garden for Grenville.

So, what’s STILL producing?
Tomatoes which are still green, but Grenville is hoping these will redden soon for his favorite ‘mater sandwich . . .

Meanwhile, the green peppers are still producing too. They have been delicious in salads and omelets.

Grenville has already put in winter crops of broccoli and cauliflower which he’s tried in the past but not with great success. These plants have been looking good with lots of care and watering.

There’s still lots of fresh rosemary and some basil.Meanwhile the surprise volunteer butternut squash continues to grow.

And there was another unexpected surprise on the patio in the past week — marigolds reseeded and re-bloomed with perfect fall colors.

Fall is Here (on the Calendar)

Our wall calendar showed that the first day of fall arrived Sept 21. Folks in colder regions, have been welcoming lovely autumn colors. Not so here on the VA eastern shore, where we have cooler temps (thankfully) but not (yet) fall leaf colors — even flowers in the Frog & PenguINN gardens are still showing summer colors . . .Typically, we have to wait until late Oct or early Nov for autumn color. According to Grenville our seasons are:  damp and miserable winter, pleasant spring, brutally hot summer, crisp and late fall .

We’re enjoying fall colors shared by fellow bloggers, thanks to Elaine at Artic View, Christer at The Cottage by the Crane Lake, another Elaine at Our Country Cove Life and Steve at Out on the Prairie. Check Mona’s Montanagirl blog to see the clash of the titans (elks).

The Frog & PenguINN wildflower gardens have lots of still-blooming yellow and orange coreopsis and multi-colored blanket flowers. . .

More color is added by the Monarch and Painted Lady butterflies that are still fluttering in the wildflower meadow, keeping company with honeybees . . .Soldier beetles are keeping company with one another, and in great numbers as well . . .

Some flowers have already showed their finest colors.

This plant  comes into the perfect fall color and shape. NO, these are not miniature pumpkins, but seed pods of the Chinese Lantern plant, also called Bladder cherry, Japanese lantern or Winter cherry. (These photos are for Margaret of Bellathena ‘s blog as her lanterns were green).

The lantern plant is identifiable by the larger, bright orange to red papery covering its fruit, which resemble Chinese lanterns. It’s belongs to the Nightshade family, a family of plants,  characterized by alternate leaves, usually five-petaled flowers. Other nightshade plants include eggplant, tomato, potato,  capsicum peppers, tobaccos, and petunias.

The lantern plant blooms in early spring and dries in late summer. The plant's small white flowers are pollinated by bees. The calyxes, or lanterns, which begin to form as the flowers fade, are a brownish green, then turn to scarlet as they mature. Inside is a red berry. The thin mesh-like outer cover once held the flower petals.

It’s a popular ornamental plant, but is invasive with a wide-spreading root system that sends up new shoots some distance from where it was originally planted. In various places around the world, it has escaped cultivation. We have quite a few in our front flower beds and once the seeds disperse, we will have even more next year.

THEY'RE HERE!!!!!!

OH YEA!!!!!! Today is the day i have waited for since last fall. Thats when the last of the tomatoes were picked and savored, knowing that the memory would have to hold me for long time till another fresh, delicious, begging to be eaten red beauty would appear.
Well today was the day. Our two tomato plants (Rutgers) have grown huge. Then they started filling with those cute little blossoms. Then little green orbs that grew but remained green..

 So this was the garden this morning. But hiding among all those big green leaves was the fruits of all our labors.

 If you look toward the bottom you'll see just the slightest hint of pink. BUT right behind, two Solanum lycopersicums were trying to hide. BUT to a dedicated Solanum Sleuth there would be no hiding.

And here they are. Two delectable red orbs just begging to be salted and eaten.

I was going to take a picture of what happened to the smaller of the two, but somehow it got eaten

(to many oohhs and ahhhhhs and of course much lip smacking').

The rest will be enjoyed in tonights salad. Finally a tomato i can taste!!!!!!!

Grenville (Smacking his lips)….

What’s Flowering Now ?

Yesterday’s post showed Grenville’s 2012 veggie garden. We also have lots of  flowers and wildflowers in the “wildflower meadow,” as Grenville calls the back yard, where he threw planted lots of seeds last spring and in flower beds in front of and back of the Frog & PenguINN.

All of the F&P flower gardens are low-maintenance these days since we don’t annually replant as we did when up until a couple of years ago and don’t water unless absolutely necessary as in no rain for a week or so. The wildflowers seem to be doing just fine in spite of our neglect un-attendance.

There images are from the back wildflower garden and “meadow” earlier this week. The blue cornflowers have taken over much of the meadow which last year was predominately coreopsis.Not all cornflowers are blue — there’s also white, pink, lavender

Orange daylilies are the most invasive type of daylily and these grow abundantly along roadsides, in fields and in our front and back yards.We have some multi-colored daylilies bought from our  local day lily grower last year. They have wonderfully come back in bloom, but I don’t recall their “names.”

Day-old daylilies with color boost filter used in Picasa.

Daisies are in the back gardens . . .

There’s a lot of coreopsis and some primrose (?) too . . .

Yellows and orange blooms with touches of red. The multi-color Indian Blanket flower is a favorite of mine.

What’s in YOUR colorful gardens — let us know !

What’s in Grenville’s Garden?

This is where Grenville’s greenhouse once stood. It’s shown below in its new location. As part of our home (and yard) downsizing, it was sold in Feb. to our friend, Matt, who is putting it to great use.

Grenville’s plan was to plant the F&P’s 2012 veggie garden in the footprint of the greenhouse. Here’s HOW it’s doing as of this week.As you can see, it’s watched over by 2 “guard” flamingoes. They work cheaply and are doing a great job cause no predators have been spotted foraging in the garden.

In previous years, since relocating to VA from NJ, we’ve had large vegetable gardens that included corn, tomatoes, lettuce, onions, beans, eggplant, zucchini, squash, peppers. Not only was it a lot of work, but we had too much, too soon some weeks, There were lots of giveaways, freezing and baking. Last July featured our great veggie giveaway as we transported bags of veggies to NJ, PA and RI — we had a LOT of excess fresh veggies that wouldn’t keep took a July road trip to meet our new granddaughter Elizabeth. (YIKES, it’s almost been a year, soon we’ll celebrate her 1sy birthday with another road trip!) 

Grenville’s plan this year was to keep the veggie garden not only simple, but closer to the house. It’s been a LOT less work weeding and watering. We expect to have enough fresh veggies to keep us supplied with salad fixings and side dishes this summer.

The oregano and basil will taste great in fresh tomato salads.

Grenville’s already looking forward to the first red tomatoes . . .

They will go well with salad accompaniments of cukes & peppers . . .The beans are climbing their poles and the lone eggplant already has a couple of flowers.We’re hoping to be able to sample some of the garden output BEFORE the next road trip coming up in mid-July. And, maybe we’ll be transporting more garden giveaways, just not as many this time.