The Silvery Fir Tree tomato, in the small hanging basket, has been almost the only tomato up until now to produce any ripe fruit this year! Other plants are JUST now starting to ripen fruit, but what an amazingly late year it has been.

Meanwhile, nothing stops this intrepid little plant. Such a small container, and yet it keeps producing. Not the best flavor, buy hey, when you have no other tomatoes, any tomatoes are wonderful!

Things are so late this year. Usually I have most everything planted and done this time of year.

I did get part of my tomato plants (11) in the ground yesterday (+4 in earthboxes), but that’s just about 3 weeks later than usual. And I was hoping to get a little time to be in the garden today, but it rains, rains, rains again.

On top of that, the slugs have started going after the tomato seedlings in the greenhouse at night, so now I am moving them indoor for protection at nightfall.

My husband ran into a young man here in our area who has created his own composters! He is selling them to earn money for college.

They are very impressive and very well made. Here are a couple of photos of them – click to enlarge:

For more detailed information download this brochure:

College-Composter.pdf

Today I transplanted most of my pepper and eggplant seedlings (60 of them) from the Bio-Dome to small green pots.

A few days ago I transplanted the first of my onion plants to 4 Earthboxes (1 variety per box) I used to say I would never grow onions in Earthboxes, because of the recommendation of 10 per box. I am planting 20 per box now, since I grow organic and mix the fertilizer into the whole top layer of the box, so I plant down the middle of the box as well – not having to worry about keeping seedlings away from the fertilizer strip!

March 7. I have been growing Strawberries in earthboxes for the last few years, but this year I decided it is time to do some in the ground, so I dedicated one of my 4X4 beds to strawberries. Tristar is well suited for growing in this area, and I love the flavor of this berry!

I also got a Bio-Dome started with tomatoes. (with half an eye on the Oscars)

Our GoldRush dwarf apple tree finally got in the ground this year. If you have not tried GoldRush apples, you should.

It is one of the best apples I have ever tasted, crisp, not too tart and not too sweet. Just right. Like the flavor of 5 apples packed into one. Stores for a long time.

In short: The Perfect Apple

Cross pollinates with Liberty (among others)

Learn more about GoldRush here

I baked a cake with GoldRush apples today.

Recipe:

150 grams butter
1/3 cup organic, unrefined sugar
1 egg
3 large apples
1 tsp cinnamon
A little more than 1 &  1/8 cup flour (but not a full 1 &  1/4)

Melt the butter, mix with sugar and beat until fluffy. Add one egg and mix until smooth.

Add flour and mix in well.

Spread on bottom of an oiled and floured pie form.

Cut apples in slices and put in plastic bag with cinnamon and shake until evenly covered with cinnamon.

Stick the slices as close together as you can throughout the dough mixture.

Bake at 350ºF for 40 minutes.

This little fellow is only one of many reasons why I grow organically!

I was just about to pick this Black Prince tomato when I spotted the frog.

I’ll pick this tomato tomorrow instead.

While working on making a short promotional video for the new Google Adwords training course, things kept going wrong.

I eventually got one done, but here, instead, are all the bloopers collected:

PPC Domination Blooper Reel

Some photos of our recent snow in Wilsonville. Not much for most of you, but very unusual for us here in this part of Oregon.