Frozen Tomatoes

By SKEETER
I did not plant any vegetables other then Tomatoes in my Georgia Garden this year. The only tomatoes I seem to have luck with are Roma. That is fine by me as I love to use Roma's in sauces, soups and chili.
I planted 4 slips last spring and one did nothing more then just die on me. I have no idea what happened as it was beside the others in a nice row. As you can see, I harvested lots of red beauties from the 3 thriving plants. I had so many that I blanched, peeled and froze many tomatoes in containers in my freezer.
Here is a tomato plant that came up totally Voluntary for me! I did nothing to this plant but water it when the sprinkler was in the area and water just happen to hit it. I am amazed it survived the hot, dry summer we had.
I was able to harvest many maters from this Volunteer as well. Maybe Mother Nature was being nice to give me a plant since one of my bought ones died. I had a nice stock of tomatoes in my freezer waiting for winter and me to cook some yummy treats.

Over the weekend our freezer went out! Yep, it just up and died on us. The freezer was running but not keeping a freezing temperature. So it was out a bit before we realized it had died! Sunday, we grilled all the meat that had thawed. We got the new refrigerator in place on Monday morning but everything else in the freezer had now thawed. I went on a cooking frenzy! I made Soup, Chili, Spaghetti Sauce, Green Bean Casserole, etc. I have cooked enough food to feed an Army! So much for FROZEN TOMATOES, In the Garden...

Note: We lost our Washing machine a few months ago. That makes two major appliances purchased in 2001 now dead. They sure don't make things like they used to....
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Camellia Seedlings In The Garden

With the advent of fall things in the garden have been happening rather rapidly. I've been very busy planting many new plants, creating a new garden, dividing and filling in, and preparing the greenhouse for the winter. While scurrying about doing all my chores I passed by my very large fall blooming pink camellia and I happened to notice some evergreen plants growing below the tree. There were seven evergreen seedlings growing under the camellia and I thought to myself-dare I hope? Dare I hope for seedlings from the camellia? I have had camellia seedlings before and tons of camellia apple seedpods but I have not had luck really getting more camellias from the existing camellias-until now.

Still skeptical these seedlings were camellias I dug through the pine needle mulch until I reached the seed. And sure enough! These seeds are clearly the apple seedpods I posted about a few years ago. I now had confirmation that these seedlings were indeed camellias. It seems the conditions were just right for the camellia apple seeds to sprout and give me two clumps of several baby camellias. And do you know what that means? Yup, another chore for me to add to my already long list of chores to be accomplished in the garden-and time is running out. Like I need another chore this time of the year. I now have to dig these seedlings and pot them up until they get big enough to either give away to friends or sell at a plant sale. Still, it was a delightful chore and one I surely should not complain about since mother nature did all the propagating for me....


in the garden....

Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden