The Tale of The Lonely Tomato

Ah a backyard garden.  We had a huge one at my dad's house when I was a kid.  I loved it and I love the idea of going right into my backyard for fresh delicious food.

The Cyclist and I have been wanting to do a garden for a long time, but cycling usually gets in the way of us doing anything around our house in the summer.  But since The Cyclist is taking a bit of a cycling break (had you noticed?), we've managed to pull a few things together this year.  Woot-woot!

So, let's start at the end of this tale.

Meet our little heirloom tomato.  Ignore the split down her side.
Isn't she lovely?

We started our garden with seeds in cups...

...we had big dreams of growing lots of things...

...some of these sprouted, but then we lost them.  We probably could have been better at caring for them, but the hot/cold/hot/cold weather in late spring wasn't helping matters either.

Our tomatoes started as little baby plants, heirlooms that I got at the farmer's market.  We put them in pots, and then in the ground.

We tend to them with care.

But alas, so far we have only grown that one lovely, lonely tomato.
What the heck?!  I say.  I just don't get it.

And to add to the mystery, our tomato plants are now giant...

...with lots of flowers, but nothing since that one little tomato.
It makes me wonder if we should stick to being Mystery Gardener's.

Oh well.  She sure did taste good on our salad.
Which reminds me....Summer Bucket List item #5, check!

Now cross your fingers that we'll get some more tomatoes!
Have a happy day!

Race Update/Squash Update

As an addendum to yesterday's post, I would like to share with you my attempts at cooking our mystery garden squash last night.

This squash...

...was a normal squash!  Imagine that.

We cut it up and sauteed it with some other veggies.  It tasted like squash.

This squash...

...was hard as a freaking rock!  We couldn't even cut it with our new knives.

I think this must be a cross between a squash and a gourd or something.  Cross-pollination is happening for sure!

Let's hope our pumpkins aren't that hard or we'll never be able to carve them!

Now that the Squash Update is complete, I'd like to bring you the Race Update. 

Sunday was the NCNCA Masters State Criterium Championships.  The Cyclist is..was...the current NCNCA Crit Champ until Sunday.  Boo-hoo.  We would have liked it if he could have won again, but I was a little worried about how he would fare after Tuesday's crash. 

Anyway, we headed off to the race, which was in old-town Clovis, CA.  Before we go on here I'd just like to say, in a non-complainy way, this was a cute town with a nice course and friendly people.  But, I think the race would have had a better turn-out if it was located in a more Northern California central location.  This is purely my spectator opinion.  I have no idea how they pick the location of these races.

So....

...haaay.  Let us begin.

I am still attempting how to learn to take better photos. 

It would probably be a good idea for me to read the camera manual.  I have not yet done this. 

I did succeed in printing it.  It is about an inch thick, so it will take some time for me to read and learn.

In the meantime, I just try stuff and sometimes get lucky.  I am still having issues with focusing, so I decided I would not do any "sport continuous" pics on Sunday, instead focus on...well...focusing.

In the small camera screen, I thought this pic was going to be the shot of the day...

...I don't know how I got the blurred background, but I like it.  The rest is not as clear as I had hoped though.

These ↓ pics are from the race before The Cyclists category (30-34). 

Sorry, I don't know which category it was....maybe 35-39?

The Cyclist took this one ↑.  He does good.  I've decided he has a more steady hand than I do.

I like this ↑ pic.  But once again, blurry.  Boo.

Showin' some Rio love ↑.

  

This ↓ was probably my most clear photo of the day...



So overall,  not bad, not great.

Let's move on to The Cyclist's race...

...waitin' at the start...

...and right away these two dudes start attacking...

  

...and the peloton began the chase...

....and continued to chase...

(this ↑ picture turned out pretty clear)

...but those two up front just kept making the gap bigger....

...look, he's even smiling about it ;) ....

...and the peloton kept chasing...

 ...and chasing...

 ...and chasing...

Let me stop here and explain the course was a figure 8.

At one point when I was standing at the center and saw that these dudes ↓ were a fool loop ahead of those dudes ↑ I figured it was a done deal....

....so I took some pretty pics along the course...

...cute birdhouse...

...cute house house...

...and made my way back to the finish line....

Congrats new crit champ, whoever you are.

We were bummed but it was nothing a little of this couldn't solve...

The End.

I'll be posting ALL the photos here and to flickr shortly.

Mystery Garden

Finally!  I feel like I've been pimpin' this post too much and it's now going to end up being a let down.  But who cares?!  I'm determined to share our garden of mystery!!

About a year ago, The Cyclist built me these nifty compost bins...

...(I told you he was handy). 

Compost, anyone?

The initial idea was that we could use the compost in the garden boxes we intended to build in Spring... ....which we did not do. 

Planning a wedding really is a full time job apparently.

That's OK though because we're cutting down on landfill waste by throwing all of our left-over veggie pieces and yard trimmings in here.  If you don't have a compost bin you can throw all the same stuff in your county green waste bin (assuming you have one).  It really cuts down on trash.

BTW, if you have one of these:

you'll need to add that mesh netting to your compost bin or he will eat all your compost. 

Especially if yours is a Lab too.

So sadly, we didn't get our garden boxes built because we were too busy, but then....

....a miracle occurred...

...a mysterious miracle at that...

...a garden sprouted out of our compost bin!

Presto!  Just like that!

After seeing these pretty flowers....

...The Cyclist announced we were now squash farmers.

Yipee!

In visiting the Farmer's Market I also learned we were squash blossom farmers.

Did you know they sell these bad boys at the market?

Apparently people stuff them with goat cheese and other things....interesting.

So, The Cyclist was right, we are squash farmers...

BUT...in addition to being squash farmers, we are apparently also....

gourd farmers?

AND...

...Pumpkin farmers???

What the...?

Needless to say, we aren't really sure how this happened other than we probably threw our Halloween pumpkins and gourds in the compost bin and they decided to multiply.  But, because we like adventure, we are letting this crazy mystery garden flourish!

Suegee (that's your name for the blog, you know who you are), we hope you have your annual pumpkin carving party this year!  We're hoping we get an automatic win for bringing homegrown pumpkins!

In the meantime, I'll be cooking this squash tonight, so I will report back.  If anyone has guesses or thoughts on what specifically our garden is growing, please share.  Maybe these aren't pumpkins? 

Coming soon - blog post & photos of Sunday's NCNCA crit champ race....stay tuned!

**I shared this over at Centsational Girl - click the link for lot's of great gardening ideas!