Chocolate Mint

Today Dearest and I went to the Knoxville Farmers Market. I figured that it would be limited to crafts, strawberries, and lettuce. But there was a larger amount of plants and produce. A lot of the choice produce was sold out, but there was a significant amount of things to choose between. Although we ended up getting some good cheeses and breads, the winners of the Farmers Market was the dogs. We ended up getting bags and bags of treats. It probably had a lot to do with Delta dog. We brought her with us and she was decked out in her sundress. Everybody was pointing, petting, and commenting. She loved the attention.

I did find a chocolate mint that I have been wanting for a while now. Here is a picture of the chocolate mint after I transplanted it.

Hopefully, I can get a few cuttings and propagate the mint. It may take a little while before it is ready for that, but I would like to have more of it. It smells so good. It will go well with the spearmint and peppermint that I have.

Mmmm... Tomatos...

Last year, I decided to get 3 tomato plants. Dearest likes tomatos and I wanted to get a few plants for her salads. I had never really thought much of tomatos, but that was mainly because I never had a good tomato. We never grew tomatos when I grew up, because mom was the only one that would eat them. Consequently, the only tomatos that I ever tried to eat were those flavorless store-bought tomatos.

Our 3 tomato plants last year included a locally grown large brandywine that we bought at the co-op and 2 cherry tomato plants. The cherry tomatos didn't have much flavor, but the brandywine was fantastic. The 3 tomato plants provided us with plenty of fresh tomatos, but generally didn't produce enough tomatos for canning.

In order to actually get enough for canning, I would bought local produce from people in Grainger County. Those were also really good tomatos. One of the local fruit stand had some Cherokee Purples. After getting up enough courage to try one of those black looking tomatos, I was shocked about the flavor.

Over the winter, I started researching the Cherokee Purple and other types of heirloom tomatos.

This year I have gone a little crazy with tomatos. I started a significant number of cherokee purples in the basement, and I also started 3 seeds from the brandywine that we had last year. I am pretty excited about getting more of them. I also bought seeds from Seed Savers, Seeds of Change, and bought some other organic seeds around town.

So far, I have planted:

• 1 Yellow Pear
• 1 Black Cherry
• 1 Gold Metal
• 1 Black Krim
• 1 Sudduth's Strain Brandywine
• 1 German Queen
• 2 Mexico Midgets
• 3 Mortgage Lifters
• 4 Mr. Stripey
• 4 Celebrity
• 6 Brandywine
• 10 Cherokee Purples

Additionally, I have about 10 more Cherokee Purples in the basement under the grow lights and a few suckers from the above planted tomatos. I'm pretty sure that I am going to have all of the tomatos that I want to eat and more than enough for canning.

Seed Savers Transplants

I ordered my first set of transplants from Seed Savers. When the order shipped on last Tuesday from the nursery I got a tracking number. Unfortunately, I started looking at other companies and noticed that some will not ship via standard shipping because the plants may not survive. So, I started to check the status of the plants every day.

I noticed that the plants were in Nashville on Thursday night and were scheduled to be delivered on Friday. Three days in the mail, the should be good right? Wow, I'm so glad that I will get them before next week and avoid the shipping company sitting the plants in a hot warehouse over the weekend. Unfortunately, on Friday morning I checked the status of the shipment... and then I noticed, they were just scanned as received in Atlanta. Hmmm, Atlanta is a wierd route for delivering something to Knoxville from Nashville, but it said it was on time and scheduled to be delivered by 5. OK, I'll check it later... at 5PM, woohoo... the plants were in ORLANDO!!!!! Needless to say, the plants stayed in a warehouse in Orlando for a few hours and then were re-routed back up this way...

The picture shows a Suddath Strain Brandywine, a Mexico Midget, a Gold Metal, and a Cherokee Purple. Unfortunately, there was some heat damage and one of the Mexico Midget plants died. Oh well, the people at Seed Savers were great and replaced the dead plant. They were very nice, and were a pleasure to discuss my problems.

Posting.

After moving last year and getting settled into the house, I pretty much stopped updating on the blog. I have been busy enough with work, that I haven't attempted to post anything. I am going to try to keep my posts updated reguarly now.

Cucumber

Well, our cucumber trellis doesn't work so much. We used some cheap plastic poles to help trellis the cucumbers. The weight of the cucumbers has actually pulled down all of the string and doesn't seem to help them any.

• 1 lb. Cucumber

Cook-out

Dearest & I had family come into town. They were helping paint and fix up the new house. I am glad that they came, but I wish they would have stayed a little longer. I could barely keep up with there work pace. Maybe I'm just an old soal or maybe I'm just getting old, but I can't do half as much of the things they did. Anyway, we decided to cook out for the evening. Hamburgers and hotdogs were the selected fare. With the addition of a bonfire, it was a lively night.

• 13 oz. Cucumber
• 10 oz. Tomatos
• 3.5 oz. Onion
• 6.0 oz. Turnips
  
  

Family Arrives

Family arrived at our new house this morning around 2AM. I have been tired from the moving that I couldn't stay awake to greet them. Actually, I didn't know they were there until Dearest threw the dog on the bed and told him to stay. He had been barking nonstop. Mully doesn't very much like strangers and especially doesn't like them at 2AM.

Tonight we had steaks for supper. We also got some tomatos from the potted garden for the salad. Mmm... they were good...

• 13 oz. Tomatos