Happy Father's Day!

This is the first Father's Day I have ever picked tomatoes!

Last year I thought I was lucky to pick tomatoes in mid July. These little Bumble Bee tomatoes are delicious and apparently very early. I started them from seed in February and they were flowering when I planted them. The ones we had last year from Rodale were a little bigger, but we shall see as the season progresses. And the snow peas are just beginning as well.

My hubby is having fun with his Father's Day present, a pressure washer, and washing our camping trailer with the youngest.

It looks soooo much better after just a rinse.

Harvest Time

The first of the Cherokee Purple tomatoes were ready this past week, some of the earliest I have ever had. These are the grafted tomatoes that were growing in gallon pots and were about 5 times bigger than the Amish Paste tomatoes I planted the same day.

Pickling cukes are also coming in. I started a crock of fermented half-sours from a recipe given to me by my friend Lynn. She makes the best pickles and I only hope mine turn out half as tasty as hers.

The last of the fall planted broccoli yielded a tasty broccoli salad. And I have been occasionally picking Chiogga beets and zucchini and yellow squash.

The berries are continuing to go crazy. So far I have picked 29 pounds of blueberries, most of that now residing in the freezer.  The blueberries are definitely on the downward side of picking.

The red raspberries are getting close to finishing, I hope; but the fall gold raspberries are starting to ripen for their first harvest.

Last year I preferred the flavor of the red raspberries over the gold but this year the taste of the golds is superior. Must be the weather since nothing else has changed.

Grafted Tomatoes

We have a great Mennonite nursery nearby that specializes in pepper and tomato plants. They have 200 varieties of hot pepper plants, some that they have developed; and over 100 varieties of tomato plants. They also grow and sell vegetables and we got the first strawberries of the season on Friday from them.
The past year or two they have sold grafted tomato plants. This year I decided to try two of the grafted Cherokee Purple, my favorite variety. Grafting is supposed to increase resistance to late blight which has really cut into my tomato harvest for the last few years.   If grafting does in fact decrease late blight I may need to learn how to graft!

The grafted plants were beautiful. Nice and bushy with strong stems. I just wonder how the size of the plant will compare to an ungrafted Cherokee Purple tomato. My plants usually grow about six feet tall. We'll find out in a few months! Has anyone ever grown grafted tomatoes?