We Got a Few Tomatoes This Year ... lol

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For those of you living outside of the Inland Northwest, it might seem outrageous that we consider this almost-October bounty such a blessing. Around here, our nights are 40 degrees and dropping and we are amazed at our daily high of 76 or so. Common weather for this time of year is more like high of 65 and overnight freezing! Just to make sure we all continue to smile and say thanks ... this year we are enjoying this wonderful end-of-season weather and it has given our beautiful tomato plants several extra days to continue with the production. This top picture is the two GALLONS of cherry tomatoes Skip and I picked tonight. Left size large bowl is full of a delicious heirloom variety called Sungold. They are truly like candy. The bowl on the right are all Sweet 100 plants that were volunteers from our dropped harvest last year. They are amazing too. As you can see from the pictures below, our chicken run addition along the southeast side of our yard was a huge success this year. The chickens love it ... it adds 300 square feet to their previous run alongside the shop, plus they have a private tunnel through the back of the little storage shed which they use to enjoy viewing the day when there is inclement weather without the bother of getting wet :) We filled the bed with four cherry tomato plants, plus some dill, anise, and sweet pea climbers ... oh ... and a couple of transplanted marigolds. The marigolds this year are over 4' tall ... we love the fragrance and usually have some in the kitchen for that delightful smell.

The chicken side of the plants are just as big, and the girls love it when we go in to pick because so many ripe ones drop and they get busy fighting over who gets what.

In the pic below Skip is pontificating about how great his garden grows when he pays attention and "has some woman to help him." I remain crazy about this man ... lol.

We are also getting good egg production! Four to five eggs per day from seven happy hens (this is two day's worth).