A Birthday and more Tomatoes

We celebrated my Mom's 80th birthday today. Here she is sitting in her new birthday swing, a gift from her husband, Fred. He bought the swing, but made the frame for it himself. Now they can sit in the front yard, in the shade, and watch the neighborhood go by. :D


I'd bought her a bottle of lotion and some perfume, and also gave her a pillow made of this 18 inch kaleidoscope block:


It matches this king size quilt they got for Christmas last year. I put a border around the edges, (some of the same royal blue ferny fabric from the quilt border) then a zipper down the middle of the backing so it could be used for a storage pillow... now it's stuffed with winter knit caps, but in the winter, it could be stuffed with t-shirts or beach towels.

And here's the status of my tomatoes... one of the medium size Goliath tomatoes was red enough to pick, and 14 of the cherry tomatoes. There's one very green cherry tomato that fell off the vine when I tried to pick the red one next to it, I've put it in the same bowl to see if it ripens enough to eat. I'm going to choose the five reddest little ones for supper tonight. :-P

Jewel Box and Tomatoes

Well, I have been quilting, and here's the evidence, one ninth of my jewel box quilt. All the half square triangles are done, all the 4 patch squares are done, all that's left is to combine them together into blocks and put it together. This is my absolute favorite part of quilting, assembling the blocks, then sewing the blocks into a quilt top.


Here's a link to what the whole quilt top will look like, my original EQ design.

And of course, what would a June blog post be without a tomato update? Here's three of my Goliath tomatoes, not near getting red yet, just getting bigger and bigger:


All sizes still popping up and growing on my Cherry tomato bush. The number of growing tomatoes on the bush is holding at about 50, because I keep picking the orangish ones:


And last, the fruits of my labors, the ones that were ripe enough to pick. They're all sizes, and so sweet and juicy. If you break it down, I've picked about ten little cherry tomatoes ... and way back at the end of April, I paid around $30 for the dirt, pots, fertilizer, three plants, and tomato cages. I try not to think about the fact that those tomatoes have cost $3 each so far... :D

Tomatoes, yet Again

Believe it or not, yes I HAVE had a request for a tomato update... :D Here's the Goliath tomatoes, there's 5 big ones growing on this bush. You can see three in this picture (4 if you click on it and look carefully.) They don't appear to be anywhere near ripening yet, maybe they're going to be huge tomatoes:


And here's the cherry tomato bush. Last time I counted there were about 45 tomatoes on here. Easier to count than you'd expect, mostly they're growing in clusters of 5 or 6. I've picked 5 of these so far, and eaten three of them, yum. The only thing I don't like is they all have the thicker skin you find on most home grown tomatoes.


Can you spot the one orange one there? I hope I'm not inundated with tomatoes when these ripen, they all look about the same size to me... lol. Maybe I ought to search for one of those cherry tomato/pasta recipes, you think?

My third tomato plant, the Better Boy, only has two tomatoes on it, but then, it was a couple of weeks younger than the other two when I bought it, and in a smaller pot, too.

First Tomato

*Sings* I've got a tomato! I've got a tomato!

It's actually a little more orange than the picture shows, so I'm going to give it a day to ripen here inside on the counter. I just didn't want the birds to get the first peck at it. Here's the arial shot, next to a nickel for some idea of size:



And the view from the side: :D



And best news of all, I'll bet that tomorrow I'll have another one to pick, it's getting some color too. Think I ought to go get some lettuce now?