Welcome to Cranky Puppy Farm!

This blog belongs to two Gen X-er's smackdab in downtown Kansas City where we've been renovating and decorating two old Victorians built in the 1890's. Our life is filled with 3 demanding Pomeranians (1 of them cranky, of course), honking cars, noisy neighbors and the hustle and bustle of city life but we dream of the day when we can move to our 40-acre farm and hear nothing but the wind and the cows next door. Until then, we're chronicling our triumphs and mishaps here as we try to garden and preserve on 2 city lots, raise chickens, and learn all those things we should have learned from our grandparents. Welcome to our world - we hope you'll stay awhile!

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Sometimes you're a winner, and sometimes you're a loser.  While out in the garden tonight, I noticed that *someone* had taken a huge bite out of the huge, beautiful Early Girl tomato that we've been waiting to ripen.  I bet the thing is close to a pound all by itself.  I was hoping that wouldn't happen, but it was very low on the plant. 

J. thinks it was the naughty male Cardinal that lives in the neighbor's tree because he saw him out there.  Apparently, he's narcissistic and drawn to anything the same color as him.  The bird that is, not J.

(*giggle*  If we had caught the Cardinal eating the tomatoes, could we say that we caught him "red-handed"?  Get it?  RED-handed?  Oh, that is so bad....)

The good news is that he spared our heirlooms, which we've been waiting on oh-so-patiently. 

Cherokee Purple tomatoes!



These aren't ripe yet, but they are very close.  Maybe tomorrow,. but definitely by the weekend.  J. is practically salivating. 

And we also got our first little Roma.  Somehow I doubt I'll get much sauce out of this little guy.


Note to Self:  when planting Romas for sauce, plant LOTS.  I've just got 4 plants and, while they are covered with tomatoes, it's not going to be nearly enough to make enough sauce for canning.  *sigh*

I've got a really cool topic planned for tomorrow's post and it's something that I don't think I've seen on any body else's garden blog.  So I hope you'll join me tomorrow to see what the top secret topic is.

What's up in your garden this week?  I love reading about it, so please leave me a comment!

3 comments:

  1. Some purty tomatoes ya got there! You could go ahead and pick those heirlooms, sit 'em on the kitchen counter in the sun for a day and then chomp down. No sharing with the wildlife :) As long as they have the sunshine, they will still be loaded with vitamins.

    Can't wait to hear what the top secret topic is :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. A few years ago I bought two Roma tomato plants from Lowes that said on the tag they were determinate, so they should have ripened all at once. My plan was to make lots of tomato sauce for canning. But wouldn't you know those plants pushed out plenty of tomatoes, but they ripened all summer long, and I never did have a huge batch all at once. It was a bit frustrating. However, DH and I still canned plenty of salsa, and froze pureed tomatoes, which was nice to make into sauces in the winter.
    It will be interesting to see if your plants only put up your current tomatoes, or keep going all season.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, boy, just for that I'll take a picture of what I picked tonight, because frankly, I think that's going to be all we get! We just used the last of last year's spaghetti sauce the other night, so I'll be buying tomatos this weekend! Your's look like they are going to be good!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...