Tomatoes Out of Control!

It's been about a month and a half (see the May 21st posting) since I transplanted my tomatoes outside and boy, have they taken off! In all, I wound up with about eight plants so if they all produce, I will have tomatoes coming out of my ear! I have two of the smaller self-watering containers (see photo at left) and a self-watering raised bed that has both tomatoes and peppers, though I'm afraid that the tomatoes will over take the peppers. I may have to do some very careful mid-season transplanting. The tomatoes in the other small self-watering container aren't looking so good, but it does have blossoms on it. I don't know if the seeds were too old or if it didn't get enough sun at the beginning. It was one of the last to get transplanted outside.

We've been eating farmers market tomatoes and savoring the rich flavors, but we can't wait to be able to eat our own, home grown tomatoes! I've lost track of which varieties these tomatoes are so I guess it'll be a surprise when we eat them!

Snake!!!

Well, we've been living with this little fellow for the past month now, playing hide and seek. Every so often on a nice hot sunny day he would be lounging in our rock bed by the grill. When he would notice us, he'd slither under the wooden post that was the rock bed border and wouldn't come out for days. Today we were both brave (or stupid) enough to peek out at each other. I found enough guts to get the camera and shoot while he peeked out and stuck its tongue out at me. After the photo shoot though, he disappeared for another few days of hiatus.

I didn't need to search long though and found its relative. Under another wood border for a tree. I was getting ready to put down a tree ring, lifted the log and there it was. I gave a scream and my husband went and got the waiting Tuperware to catch it in. An outside observer might have found this very amusing. Anyway, my husband caught it and I called up my friend who'd said he'd wanted one for his kids. Much to my relief, he came over right away and got it out of my house! Whew! One down, how many more to go?