Frustration

Frustration is growing over our tomato situation. I was out looking at them yesterday and came in the house disgusted and called Tim. I had decided that this weekend I was going to yank out every blessed plant and go get new plants, or at least hope to find a nursery that still had some tomato plants around. He calmed me down and talked me out of it (for now).

This is tomato patch number one. As you can see, the bushes are big, green, and beautiful. This plants are covered with blossoms but not one tomato. I don't get it. I have to go out and tie them up again but each time I'm out there tying them up I am wondering if I'm wasting my time.

This is tomato patch number two. Again, the plants look very healthy. They are getting really big. They too are covered with an enormous amount of blossoms. I thought I had seen the start of one tomato but it hasn't gotten any bigger.

Some blossoms. They start all nice and tight like the one at the bottom and then they open up and the top ones look like they are about to be done...but no signs of tomatoes.

Some more blossoms. Again, they are nice and tight and look like normal tomato blossoms...but look at the middle where the blossom petals have kind of turned brown, there is a stem looking thing sticking out. Is that normal? I don't know.

Another group of blossoms. Each and every one of our plants has groups of blossoms like this. If only they would start showing signs of actually growing a tomato. Another thing that concerns me is the stem that each blossom is attached to. If you look just above each flower there is a crook. Those crooks are very fragile and will sometimes break with hardly a touch and then I have a blossom in my hand.

So, I'm not sure what to do. It breaks my heart to yank these beautiful plants out of the garden. They appear to be insanely healthy...but not producing. Is it the weather? We've had two to three weeks of grey, rainy, chilly days. This is our first week where we've had two days of sun in a row. Maybe after a week or so of sun I'll start to see some progress. I'm running out of time where I'm going to be able to get replacement plants. When we went to the nursery a couple of weeks ago to replace them, their plants looked terrible. They were big and leggy and not many leaves. Their blossoms looked just like mine do. I guess for now I'm going to let them be and keep tying them up. If they don't produce, I'll be buying a lot of tomatoes at the Farmer's Market...which by the way opens tomorrow! I can't wait!!

Now, as far as the rest of the garden goes, it looks great!

The cucumbers are starting to get big and are reaching for the trellis. They also have quite a few blossoms on them.

A yellow squash blossom. It looks like I am going to end up with two yellow squash and hopefully a zucchini plant. It was supposed to be two zucchini and one yellow squash, but it's becoming apparent that I have two yellow squash. I'm not too sure what to do with yellow squash as far as preserving, but I do know they are pretty kick ass in stir fries.

A mutant yellow squash. Nancy called these the twins. Interesting.

At least the flowers are growing nicely and making the garden area look pretty.

The astilbe looks magical. I love these plants.

Zinnias. I think these are right on top with the gerber daisies as being favorites. I love the shading of this purple one.

And last but not least:

How cute is this? Aidan lost his other top tooth on an ice cream cone the other day. I have to take lots of pictures of him with his two teeth missing before his big boys grow in. I want to remember how cute this is. There will be no more lost front teeth in this family...well unless there is some accident but I'm going to hope that doesn't happen.