First Ripe Tomato, Bean Flowers, and a UFO…
Woo hoo! I managed to save my first ripening tomato from marauding mockingbirds by the timely application of bird netting, and picked it yesterday. It’s not a real big tomato, but it’s the first this year, and it’s mine!
Pics and more
Click for the really big pic.
The first ripe tomato this year.
First ripe tomato from my volunteer tomatoes
The Scarlet Runner beans are running, and blooming. And they are definitely scarlet!
Scarlet Runner Beans
And so are the Hestia half-runner beans.
Hestia half-runner beans
Saw today that one of my cucumber vines is flowering, but it’s only a few male flowers. Be a while, I’m sure, before I get any beans or cucumbers. Probably be another few days until I have another ripe tomato, too. The cantaloupe and Gold Bar melons I planted are starting to run, too, though just barely. And my zucchini looks a whole lot better than any I planted last year. They just stayed sickly and puny, and expired very rapidly. This year, they look like zucchini are supposed to look, growing like weeds! Now if I can just keep the squash vine borers off, I should actually get a zucchini or two. I check the leaves every day…kind of obsessive compulsive about it, even…Do not want to see those eggs anywhere near my zucchini!
The baby peppers I planted out the other day are doing fine so far. I put the two Fruit Basket sweet peppers in their baskets, and 4 jalapenos in the garden. All are hanging in there, despite the heat. Better than me, probably! I hate hot.
Anyway, on to the U(nidentified) F(lowering) O(bject). What, you thought I saw aliens? Not lately, anyway! Well, except the illegal kind; hard to live down here and not see those kind. Ok, flowers. I had a bunch of different packages of wildflower seeds, and have no idea what I planted where. Once I started clearing out the dying California Poppies, I found this guy growing in the pot. It’s a pretty little plant, stands about 2′ tall, basically a single stem with the thin leaves, until it gets to the top. As soon as it started budding out, the flower heads grew out from the central stalk. And the blooms are about the size of a half dollar, more or less. So here’s pics. If you know what this is, drop me a comment. please…and thank you!
Unidentified Flowering Object
OK, that’s about all for today. Later…
EDIT: Thanks to the Texas Gardening forum on Gardenweb, my UFO has been identified as Helenium amarum, common name Yellow Sneezeweed. Thanks, ladies!
I’m terrible when it comes to identifying flowers, but the first thing I thought was…”.is there a yellow pincushion flower?” So I looked it up, and there is! Scabiosa columbaria var. ochroleuca It sure is pretty!
Close, but not quite. I googled images, and it’s not quite right. I’m going to try the Texas forum or wildflower forum on Gardenweb, in a bit. I’ll eventually get an answer.