a variety of tomatoes

Our tomato varieties:
Cherokee Purple (Ferry Morse Heirloom)
Abe Lincoln (Ferry Morse Heirloom)
Black Krim (Ferry Morse Heirloom)
Big Rainbow (Ferry Morse Heirloom)
Yellow Pear (Burpee Heirloom)
Roma (Burpee)
Sweet 100 hybrid (Burpee)
John Baur (Seed Savers - Bonny Best 1914)
Green Zebra (Seed Savers - Tater Mater 1983)
Tasty Evergreen (Seed Savers - Seedmen 1956)

Alexa really grew strong seedlings this year. This one was sown in February, transplanted after 6 weeks growth and is about 12 weeks old now and ready to go into the garden.

garlic

The soft-necked garlic looks ready...falling over. I dug up 4 small cloves. I left the others in the ground for a few more days.

The elephant garlic needs another week or so.

A great page for garlic: http://www.hoodrivergarlic.com/garlic-calendar.htm

Last week while I was gone...

Alexa did a lot! She raked out all the old mulch from the landscaped areas in preparation for the arrival of the new cedar mulch. The cedar mulch, about 6 yards (3 cu ft) fill about half a dump truck. It was the prize for winning the Journal-Star Better Earth Garden contest for 2011.

See post here: http://tuliptreehomestead.blogspot.com/2011/06/yes.html

Also being delivered is 2 yards of finished compost. One can never have enough compost, truly.

Asian Lily

Also, while I was away at a conference for work, the asiatic lilies popped out near the toad houses.

Today, we planted all the annuals into the pots for the front patio. Also, planted another section of sunflowers on the north side of the house edged with hostas. There are already 3 types of sunflowers on the south side of the house also fronted with hostas. The sunflower varieties are: Lemon Queen (Seed Savers Exchange, Iowa), Valley Green ($0.10  generic seed), and Kervin's (a coworker) Giant Russian Sunflowers.

a peek into the basement

It's been a few years since I started seedlings in the basement. I've forgotten a few lessons.

The grow lights worked great except that I had them too high at the beginning and a lot of the plants (heck, all of the plants!) went leggy. They might not survive a transplant into the garden.

I might go back to Lowe's to get more of the 25cent plants!