All things great and green: garden, grass, green onions, green tomatoes & all the gratitude for the goodness of God's creation

A few plant related thoughts and items for which to be grateful pertaining to the plant world- 

1. The garden- as I've written a time or two, I had garden success this year for the first time with growing tomatoes. Several not so great things happened in the garden this year as well. While I'm focusing on the positive, I don't want to be too pollyanish about the situation! There was the strawberrycide incident whereby our lawn company sprayed the strawberry plants with weed killer. There was the accidental stepping on of several immature zucchini plants by an air conditioner technician. (The perils of placing the garden near our HVAC unit- unfortunately, I've learned this the hard way.)  Anyway, back to tomatoes- I learned a lot about tomatoes and will do things differently next year based on what I think/ know impacted the plants' growth this year. Thanks to a crazy warm start to November, our tomato plants kept producing/ growing tomatoes past, what I can only assume, the normal growing season.  

By the numbers:

First tomato picked: September 1st

Last tomato picked: November 14th

Number of tomato plants: 4 1/2 (one plant only produced one tomato but it did exist so I'm giving it 1/2 half)

Number of tomatoes picked: 135 (give or take a few)

Lessons learned about tomato plants to keep in mind for next year- four come to mind easily but there are probably more!

Part of this plant was thriving in early November. Some parts of the plants were withered but not this area in the front. It was still flowering!

2. Green tomatoes- I picked about twenty green tomatoes when I thought that the weather was taking a turn for the cold and the plants would not thrive anymore. This was on October 16th. The weather did take that turn but then warmed up and the plants stayed alive so I was able to pick more green tomatoes mid November. Though there are things that one can make with green tomatoes, I wanted to at least try to ripen the tomatoes inside the house. If that didn't work, I would relook at recipes that called for green tomatoes. I read several articles that mentioned placing a piece of fruit- bananas and apples were listed as good choices- in a bag with the green tomatoes would help to ripen the tomatoes. The fruit would release enzymes that would hasten the ripening process. I tried this method- I ended up adding two bananas to the bag since I had so many tomatoes (in addition to placing green tomatoes in the bag, I placed every tomato that hadn't completed ripening so I had some that were yellow and partially red in the bag, too). And... it worked! The tomatoes ripened completely in the brown paper bag. It was neat to witness!! I didn't pay as much attention to the dates as I should have, but I think it took about three weeks for a completely green tomato to ripen inside the brown paper bag. 

3. Green onions- One day last week, I needed green onions for a meal that I was making so I went to the laundry room to get some green onions to cut. Perhaps not everyone keeps green onions in the laundry room.  Here is the story of how and why I store green onions in our laundry room. A few years ago, I read somewhere that cut green onion stalks will grow back if the root is kept in water. What? This I had to see for myself. It sounded too good to be true. Could you purchase one bunch of green onions and keep it going for perpetuity? Here is what I found out: green onions do start to grow back. I am able to keep a bunch of green onions in water for several months. After a few months, algae starts to collect in the water and the plant starts to deteriorate. Still this method keeps green onions lasting way longer than if they are placed in the refrigerator. 

Here is a sad looking bunch of green onions:

three days later...

eight days later...

The above pictures are from my first experiment in green onion keeping.  I now place the green onions in a tall glass Mason type jar and keep it on the windowsill of a window in the laundry room. That's why I go to the laundry room when I want to cut green onions for a recipe!

4. Green grass/ less green grass- I noticed something when heading back to the garden last week- the grass in our yard shows signs of wear where I walk from the garage to the garden. It's fairly subtle. You'd have to be looking for it and I doubt anyone would notice it. But I can definitely tell that there's a wearing down in the grass due to me walking on the grass to the garden so much. My compost bin is in one corner of the garden. That is one reason that I walk to the garden fairly frequently. During the summer, especially, I collect items to be composted daily and take them to the compost bin. When the weather turns colder, I may let a couple of days pass before I add compostable items to the bin. But in the summer, it's at least every day. Then in the summer, I often have to water at least four mornings a week so I walk to the garden to water it. As the garden produces its fruit or vegetables, I walk to the garden to collect that. Add in weeding periodically, and, as it turns out, I walk a lot to the garden such that the grass shows my walking path. While I would prefer a lush uniform green grass to an imperfect, grass worn down one aesthetically, the fact is that I'd rather have my well loved garden than perfect looking grass ;).

5. Gratitude for all things good in nature- So much to be thankful for in all facets of life. But focusing on nature, I have been reminded lately of how much beauty there is both near us and not too far away from us. The only two states that I've lived in are flyover states. No mountain vista views or miles of sandy seashores for the denizens of Indiana or Ohio unless they are prepared to go out of state.  Very few bucket type destinations exist in either of the two states. But there is a quiet beauty in the simplicity of the fairly austere, unassuming Midwestern landscape. And, there are some truly beautiful places in these two states. By truly beautiful, I mean not just relative to the state and the fact that most of it is not beautiful. But beautiful by just about any standard.  I'm know that I'm just scratching the surface here, but the following are a few places in Indiana and Ohio that I've been to recently that are really beautiful and I'm grateful that I've been able to see them.

Indiana- last December, my brother John and I met in Indiana at Turkey Run State Park. I had heard about how pretty this park was but seeing is truly believing. 

I would love to go back to Turkey Run in the spring or summer.

In Ohio, to the north of us in Miami County, there is Charleston Falls

The county to the east of us, appropriately named Greene County, is home to numerous parks and nature preservers. Among our favorites is Clifton Gorge.

Cedar Falls Park

and Glen Helen Nature Preserve

Again, these are just a few examples of places close to us that will not, in and of themselves, attract people to the area but we are thankful they are close by for us to enjoy. God's creation is so good!