Grasshopper Invasion

My tomatoes have had a profusion of green growth, unfortunately its being eaten away by grasshoppers.

Grass hoppers!!!

I had to fetch my garden gloves and wade into the raised garden bed and try to kill those suckers. I don't mind peeling off tomato horned worms, but grasshopper?

Ick! They look like creatures from another planet, and ready to hop away or take me on.

Ice Cold Tomato

Our cat, Freya. Photo owned by Janice Seagraves.

My husband got up early to let the dogs out, he picked up the cat, Freya, and stuck her under his bathrobe.

He looked at my tomatoes, now dried up husks, and in the middle of the withered leaves he spotted a bright shinny yellow pear tomato.

Hurrying over to pick the tomato, he then tossed it into his mouth. Startled by the ice cold fruit, he jogged in place.

Freya losing her place in his warm bathrobe, dug her claws in.

Inside, snuggled in my nice cozy bed, I wondered about the yelling was outside. I shrugged and went back to sleep.

Home grown tomatoes

When I let the dogs out, I picked off fall leaves that had covered my tomato plants. 

Yup, they are still alive and producing. 

Usually we have a hard frost just before Thanksgiving and it kills all my tomatoes. 

But not this year. 

We're having a mild year. So mild, I ate one of my home grown tomatoes today.

Authors in Bloom Blog Hop

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Thursday's Thirteen: Harvest Season

We live in the middle of a almond orchard and it's Harvest Season which means...

*All photos were taken by me or my daughter

1. All these lovely almond blooms

2. That opened in the early spring time...Fell off.

 3. The nut has matured during the long hot summer.

 4. And the almonds have dried and the outer shell popped open

 5. Dried Almond

6. Almond cracked open and ready to eat.

The Harvest begins on Thursday Aug. 30, 2012, which means I get woken up bright and early by the machines shaken the bejessus out of the trees and hear the hiss of almonds hitting the ground.

7.  In my home garden, we're also grown tomatoes

8. Green peppers

9. Which turned finally to red peppers

My daughter cooked them with chicken and pasta, yummy.

10. There's several orange trees on the property, which makes an awesome orange Julius.

11. My husband and daughter's favorite, grapefruit. 

12. We have a few strawberry plants

13. Which keeps us in strawberries, yum!

Do you do anything special during harvest season?

Thursday's Thirteen: Random Photos From Around My House

 1. Humming birds at our feeder

 2. Blooms on our Crape Myrtle tree

 3. Sunset and wind chimes

 4. Our dog Snaps

 5. Our cat Freya and dog Snaps hiding from me because they didn't want to go outside. The brats.

 6. My container garden

7. Peppers

 8. Nearly ripe tomato

 9. Mystery footprint in the sticky trap

10. Almond bloom

 11. Fancy daffodils 

 12. Yellow Daffodil 

13. Almond blooms against the sunset

My Container Garden

 Here are some of my potted patio tomatoes.

 On the shelves are potato plants, strawberries and some assorted flowers and a pepper plant. 

 I do have some flowers in with my container veggies.

 Here's a green better, there's another one the size of two of my thumbs.

A tomato getting ripe. I've already picked quite a few ripe tomatoes and strawberries.