Tomato Plant Troubles

From the top left, clockwise: The tomatoes we brought to Colorado, where they ripened; damage to the tomato plant in the yard (what ate the stems?); the first ripening tomatoes; a squirrel claimed the first ripening tomato and then abandoned it; my husband’s tomato plants in pots on the deck.

Some gardeners can stick a tomato plant in the ground, and a month or so later are harvesting dozens of tomatoes.  I’ve rarely harvested a decent tomato, no matter what I did, but I keep trying.  This year my husband and I had some success!!! There’s nothing so delicious as a tomato you grew yourself. 

My first problem is that I always choose to live in shady areas. I love trees more than growing tomatoes. I have a sunny spot in my current yard, though, which gets sun about seven hours a day.

Some of my past tomato problems: No tomatoes form until the season is almost over; blossom end rot when tomatoes did form; split skins; squirrels bit into my tomatoes; deer ate the stems and leaves; and tomato horn worms ate the stems and leaves.  I’m still dreading finding a hornworm every time I check my plant.

But I’m glad I didn’t give up. I grew one tomato plant in our flower bed.  My husband planted the same type of tomato in two pots on the deck with a little less sunshine but better soil in the pots. We didn’t do a scientific comparison, but I think his plants produced a few more tomatoes per plant than mine did.

After weeks of no baby tomatoes, I bought some plant hormone, which I sprayed on the flowers.  Soon some tomatoes appeared. I don’t know whether it was coincidence or due to the hormone spray. Anyway, this year we got tomatoes!

The tomatoes started to ripen at about the time we planned a nine-day vacation to Colorado. We picked the reddening tomatoes, wrapped them in newspaper and took them with us to Colorado, where we ate our garden tomatoes every day! While we were gone, our daughter checked on our house, watered the plants, picked the tomatoes, refilled the hummingbird feeder and brought in our mail. We came home to a lot more tomatoes!

How Much Sun Do Tomato Plants Need?

 

How to Keep Deer Away From Tomato Plants.

In a previous year, this tomato hornworm (Hawk moth) grew very large eating my tomato plant!

Christmas Cookie Family Favorites

Sherman Family Christmas cookie favorites include sugar cookies and date bars.

 

Every year my family looks forward to my mother’s cookies and fruit cake.  She bakes yule logs flavored with molasses, date bars, rolled sugar cookies, and fruit cake.

This year, I followed her recipe for sugar cookies and for the filled bar cookies, using chopped dates.  She sometimes substitutes part of the water with orange juice. I added a quarter teaspoon of orange extract.

 

My mother rolls her sugar cookie dough and then cuts them into shapes. I was lazy so I formed the dough into balls and then pressed them flat with the bottom of a glass.

This are my Mother’s recipes as she wrote them:
Filled Bar Cookies

Make date or other filling.

Preheat oven to 400°.

3/4 cup margarine 1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 3/4 cups flour 1/2 teaspoon soda

1 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 cups rolled oats

Mix margarine and sugar together thoroughly.

Mix together and stir in flour, soda, and salt.

Stir in oats and mix thoroughly. Place 1/2 the

crumb mixture in a greased and floured 9 x 13

pan. Spread with cooled filling. Cover with

remaining crumb mixture……patting lightly.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes until lightly browned.

While warm cut into bars and remove from pan.

Date Filling: Mix together in saucepan; 3 cups

cut-up dates (24 oz.), 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 1/2

cups water. (I have substituted orange juice

for part of the water.) Cook over low heat,

stirring until thickened. (About 10 minutes)

Cool.

Prune Orange Filling: Mix together in saucepan;

3 cups cut-up cooked prunes (drained), 1/2 cup

sugar, 1/2 cup orange juice, 2 tbls. lemon

juice and 2 tbls. grated orange rind(optional).

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until

thickened. (About 10 minutes) Cool.

Fig, Apricot,or Raisin Filling: Use date recipe

and replace with figs, apricots, or raisins.

 

 Sugar Cookies

4 1/2 cups sifted flour      2 cups sugar

  1/2 teaspoon salt          4 eggs, beaten

4 teaspoons baking powder    1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup margarine              2 tablespoons milk

Sift flour, salt  and  baking powder  together.

Cream margarine  and sugar together.   Add eggs

and vanilla.   Add sifted ingredients and milk.

Roll and cut. You will probably have to add

more flour as you roll. Sprinkle with sugar and

bake on an ungreased baking sheet in  375° oven

12 minutes.

To Fill Cookies:

Roll out dough  and cut  into  circles.   Place

teaspoon  of  filling  on  half of the circles,

keeping it away from  the  edges.   Cover  with

remaining circles  and  press  together  around

edges with tines of a fork.  Bake as for sugar

cookies.

               Raisin Filling

2/3 cup sugar    2 cups raisins    Dash of salt

2/3 cup hot water         3 teaspoons margarine

Combine ingredients and cook until thick. Cool.

                 Fig Filling

1 cup chopped figs   1 cup water  Juice 1 lemon

 1/2 cup sugar     2 tbls. flour   Dash of salt

Combine ingredients and cook until thick. Cool.

National Cat Day #NationalCatDay

I’ve been a Cat Lady since 1991 when we got our first cat, Malcolm, a little Maine Coon kitten from Wayside Waifs.

Lucky me, since the summer of 2010 I’ve played with cats and kittens every week at Wayside Waifs when I take their photographs for the adoptable cats section of the Wayside Waifs website. I also photograph dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, hamsters and ferrets. But mostly cats, maybe 15,000 so far.

Sadly, Malcolm and Paddington have both passed over the Rainbow Bridge.

#NationalCatDay I’ve been a cat lady since 1991 when we got Malcolm from #WaysideWaifs. #Purrfect Love (Top Left to Right, clockwise) Malcolm, Bones, Inka and Paddington.

My Library Doppelganger

My library doppelganger SHER C often reserves books I want to read, have read or need to read. Here’s a book that my doppelganger reserved that I need to read! Don’t worry. I left it on the shelf or him or her. I just reserved my own copy.

When you order a book online from the Johnson County (Kansas) Library, you can pick it up on the shelf at the branch you choose. A shortened version of your name will be on the spine. My name is SHER C.  There’s another SHER C, whose reserved book choices are often so similar to mine.  I call him/her my library #doppelgänger.

My library doppelgänger SHER C often reserves books I want to read, have read or need to read. Here’s one I need to read!

“The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up
The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” by Marie Kondo.

In this case, the other SHER C is also my library angel. If anyone struggles with decluttering, it’s me! I’m practically a hoarder!

 The word doppelgänger is from the German Doppelgänger, a compound noun formed by combining the two nouns Doppel (double) and Gänger (walker or goer).

The Library Angel is a phenomenon described by Arthur Koestler in which information (typically in libraries) becomes accessible through chance or coincidence rather than through the use of a cataloguing system.

The Library Angel can be regarded as a form of synchronicity. Bernard Beitman, who conducted research in coincidence studies, found that 18% of his respondents had acquired information in an unexpected way.

Arthur Koestler coined the term library angel for frequently experienced meaningful coincidences in which the right book or reference suddenly presents itself at a moment of need.

Doppelgänger

Library Angel

Marie Kondo Website

Facebook Unintended Humor

Sometimes Facebook makes a joke in my timeline.

 

I laughed when I saw these two posts together on my Facebook timeline.  A coincidence?

I saw this Facebook post on my phone screen: “This Food Poisoning Expert Revealed The 6 Things He Refuses to Eat.”  Followed by the post “TO DIE FOR CARROT CAKE.”  I checked, and thankfully the carrot cake is NOT one of the 6 items on the avoid list.  However, the cake does look so rich that you might just die from bliss as well as sugar shock.

Here are the links to the posts:

This Food Poisoning Expert Revealed The 6 Things He Refuses To Eat

“To Die For” Carrot Cake Recipe.

 

 

The Hoggs of Texas

The Jim and Sallie Hogg Honeymoon Cottage is located in the Governor Jim Hogg Park in Quitman, Texas, which was the first home of Governor and Sallie Hogg (Sarah Ann Leannah Stinson).

Americans might not know the names of many governors from states other than their own, especially not from decades ago, but Governor James Stephen “Big Jim” Hogg (March 24, 1851 – March 3, 1906) of Texas could be an exception. Hogg was known to be a great governor, but non-Texans might recognize his name from the name he gave his only daughter: Ima.  Some joked that he had a second daughter named Ura, but Ima had only brothers, who had ordinary names — Will, Mike and Tom.

Ima’s name was taken from The Fate of Marvin, an epic poem written by her uncle Thomas Hogg.  Ima (July 10, 1882 – August 19, 1975) didn’t like her name, and had no middle name, so she often used only her first initial.   As soon as he heard of his new granddaughter’s odd name, Ima’s maternal grandfather raced to his son-in-law’s house to protest, but Ima had already been christened. She never married and kept her last name until she died.

Ima Hogg, around 1900, from Wikipedia.

Ima was known as “The First Lady of Texas.” She was an American society leader, philanthropist, patron and collector of the arts, and one of the most respected women in Texas during the 20th century,  Her father  was a lawyer, state attorney general and the 20th Governor of Texas.  He was the first Texas governor to have been born in Texas and was governor from 1891 to 1895.  I first thought of writing about Jim Hogg when I saw a highway named after him near Tyler, Texas, which I often visit.  Other places in Texas are named for him, too.

 Jim Hogg County in southern Texas is named after him.  There is a Jim Hogg Historic Site near Rusk, Hogg’s birthplace.

In 1906, Governor Hogg asked that a pecan tree be planted at his grave instead of a traditional headstone, requesting that the seeds be distributed throughout the state to make Texas a “Land of Trees”.  His wish was carried out and this brought more attention to pecan trees. In 1919, the 36th Texas Legislature made the pecan tree the state tree of Texas.  The Texas town of  San Saba claims to be “The Pecan Capital of the World.”

Governor Jim Hogg became his political career in Wood County, a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,964. Its county seat is Quitman. The county was named for George T. Wood, governor of Texas from 1847 to 1849.

Wood County Courthouse, Quitman, Texas.

 

To learn about the Hogg family’s contributions to the state of Texas, as well as what Ima thought about her unusual name, click on these links:

About Ima Hogg of Texas.

About Texas Governor Jim Hogg.

About Governor Jim Hogg Park in Quitman, Texas.

Jim Hogg Historic Site, Rusk, Texas.

About The Jim Hogg Highway, near Mineola, Texas.

Another famous name associated with Quitman, Texas, is the actress Sissy Spacek, who was born in the town and has a street there named after her.

A street in Quitman, Texas, is named for the actress Sissy Spacek, a native of the town.

Click on any thumbnail to see a larger size of the photo.

The Jim and Sallie Hogg Honeymoon Cottage is located in the Governor Jim Hogg Park, which was the first home of Governor and Sallie Hogg (Sarah Ann Leannah Stinson).

Wood County Courthouse, Quitman, Texas.

A sign honors James Stephen Hogg, a Texas statesman, whose nationally acclaimed public career began at this site — the Wood County Courthouse in Quitman, Texas.

Wood County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 41,964. Its county seat is Quitman. The county was named for George T. Wood, governor of Texas from 1847 to 1849.

A street in Quitman, Texas, is named for the actress Sissy Spacek, a native of the town.

The Hottest Pepper in the World

The harvested crop of Carolina Reaper hot peppers are a brilliant scarlet. We’ve probably picked a peck of peppers, and there are more on the plants!

Last year, a friend gave my husband one Carolina Reaper hot pepper, considered to be among the hottest peppers in the world.  After my husband used the pepper very sparingly in chili and other dishes, he saved and planted the seeds.   The seeds sprouted and prospered.  He repotted the plants as they grew.  He kept four plants and gave away several more pots of pepper plants to friends and family, who said they liked hot peppers.  As the plants grew even larger, he gave away two more.  The remaining two plants produced enough hot peppers to destroy the taste buds of the population of our county.  The peppers didn’t seem to be as hot as the original pepper (the Scoville Scale link below explains why that might be the case), but they were still very hot — too hot for me!

Half of the ripe Carolina Reaper peppers have already been picked from these plants. Very prolific!

Many people do enjoy really hot peppers.  Last year, I attended (as an observer) the Hot Pepper Eating Contest in Palestine, Texas.  This year (2017), the Palestine Hot Pepper  Festival is Oct. 21. Links to the festival and my blog post about 2016’s festival are below.

The early growing stages of my husband’s Carolina Reaper hot pepper crop.

 

My husband kept four Carolina reaper plants, but eventually gave two more away. Like many pepper varieties, the Carolina Reapers start green, then turn yellow. In their ripe stage, they are a beautiful brilliant red color.

 

 

The City of Palestine, Texas, Hot Pepper Festival.

The Scoville Scale Measuring the Hotness of Pepper Varieties.

The Hottest Little Festival in Texas.

Bountiful Butterfly Garden

A male monarch butterfly sips from a tropical milkweed flower in my neighborhood butterfly garden. Just a few weeks ago, almost two dozen Monarch butterfly caterpillars were feasting on these milkweeds. Is this an adult returning to his nursery before heading off to begin the journey to a winter in Mexico?

As summer draws to a close, our neighborhood butterfly garden is now a flowering paradise finally crowded with bugs and animals. During June, July and August, the garden reminded me of a dinner party where few of the guests showed up, despite the mass of plants that bloomed all summer. We did get a lot of rabbits, who found the young plants very tasty and ate them almost to the dirt.  Joan, one of the hardest working neighborhood gardeners, built cages around the tender coneflowers and tropical milkweed plants so that they’d have a chance to provide food for other animals, and of course to be beautiful for our enjoyment.

A Monarch butterfly sipping nectar from a tropical milkweed flower in the neighborhood butterfly garden.

I’ve seen many types of butterflies in the garden this week.  The two species I plant specifically for are the Monarch Butterfly and the Black Swallowtail Butterfly.  We plant food plants for the caterpillars and lots of flowering plants that butterflies and other pollinating insects prefer for nectar. For Black Swallowtail caterpillars, we plant bronze fennel and parsley. Monarch Butterfly caterpillars will only eat milkweed, and they sometimes are picky about which kind of milkweed.  Tropical milkweed is the most popular milkweed in our Kansas City area garden, and it has lovely scarlet and yellow flowers, too. Unfortunately, it’s an annual in our climate so it has to be re-planted every spring. I buy my plants from Monarch Watch on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence, Kansas, at their plant sale in May. Monarch Watch sells a lot of plants for butterflies and other pollinators.  Their butterfly garden is worth visiting.  They also have an open house in September every year.

Protecting and fostering pollinators is good for the environment and for our food supply. A large percentage of our food plants must be pollinated to produce a crop. On a recent visit to the garden, a ruby-throated hummingbird whizzed by me. Ruby-throated hummingbirds, which are also pollinators, also visit the feeder at my house.

The Monarch butterfly population is in serious decline, so I would encourage everyone with a yard to plan a butterfly garden.  To find out more click on this link: Monarch Watch.

In the upper left is a Red-spotted Purple butterfly. The lower left is a Painted Lady butterfly. Can anyone tell me in the comments what the other two butterflies are? Can you see the insect lurking or resting under the petals of the coneflower?

In the top left photo, a Black Swallowtail caterpillar eating fennel. In the lower left photo, a crowd of Black Swallowtail caterpillars eat parsley. In the upper right photo, two Monarch butterfly caterpillars thrash around as their antennae meet. In the center right photo, a Monarch butterfly caterpillar eats Tropical Milkweed. In the bottom right photo, Black Swallowtail butterfly eggs glisten on the narrow leaves of a bronze fennel.

Here is a collage of photos from the founding days of the neighborhood butterfly garden. The top photo is from 2012, a hot summer in which I had to bring gallons of water from my house to water the new plants, because the sprinkler system didn’t provide enough water. The bottom three photos are from 2013.

An empty Monarch butterfly chrysalis hangs from a butterfly bush.

Happy Birthday From Google

Happy birthday to me from Google. This was the Google Doodle on my Google Chrome homepage on my birthday. Thank you, Google. (I think…)

The Google Doodle changes every day.  Yesterday, when I opened my Google Chrome home page I saw that the Google Doodle was composed of birthday cakes. I thought “Well, isn’t that a coincidence, today’s my birthday.”  Well, there are no coincidences with Google. When my mouse passed over the Doodle, I got a birthday greeting.

Of course, Google knows my birthday. And pretty much everything else about me. Yikes!  I can’t complain, because I’ve willingly given Google my information so that I can use its services.  I haven’t told Google my cell phone number, yet. I’m sure Google knows that, too, though.

I checked my husband’s Google home page yesterday, and his Google Doodle was different from mine, the one for the ordinary non-birthday people.

Usually, I don’t pay that much attention to the Doodle except when there’s a fuss over the Doodle subject. Google sometimes features obscure and controversial figures rather than major events and holidays. I guess that’s a way to keep things interesting. It got my attention!

Next year, when I’m expecting a birthday greeting from Google, Google may ignore me!

To learn more about Google Doodles, check out this blog post from my friend Planetjan.

About Google Doodles from Planetjan.

Historic Valentine Diners

I first saw a Valentine Diner at the Classical Gas Museum in Embudo, New Mexico. The museum, in the Rio Grande River Valley, is a collection of antique gas pumps, neon signs, soda machines, oil cans, vintage trucks and cars, plus plenty of other items.

I grew up in the Wichita, Kansas, area but it wasn’t until I visited a museum in New Mexico a couple of years ago that I found out about a hometown industry — the Valentine Diner. My family moved to the Wichita area because of its biggest manufacturing business — airplanes — but somehow I missed this smaller manufacturing cousin.

The diners were manufactured in Wichita by Valentine Manufacturing, Inc., from the late 1930s into the mid-1970s. Sales of the buildings expanded nationwide, and soon Valentine diners were installed all over the United States. About 2,200 of the portable diners, in a wide range of sizes. Some served only a handful of customers, while the double deluxe versions were as large as many restaurants with added areas that featured several booths, tables and a long counter with stools.

Numerous Valentine diner buildings are still in use today, but many are no longer diners, but serve as headquarters for other types of businesses, such as used car lot offices and dog grooming salons. One 8-stool Valentine building was converted to an Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Substation

Menu of Terry’s Diner, which has maintained the sign and location of Brint’s Diner in an historic Valentine diner building in Wichita, Kansas.

One Valentine diner still serving delicious meals is Brint’s Diner in Wichita, where my mother and I enjoyed a meal. The red and white checkered linoleum tile floor, the red vinyl booths and bar stools and the aluminum trimmed interior provide a delightful vintage atmosphere.  The diner attracts a loyal following. The Brint’s building is a double deluxe model.  The diner concept was based on railroad dining cars, but with a parking lot and the addition of porches and other extras they settled in as permanent residents of their neighborhoods.

The Grinder Man sandwich shop in Wichita, Kansas, is an A-frame model of a Valentine Diner.

This Valentine Diner building in Wichita, Kansas, formerly a Lil Joe’s Dyne-Quik, is now closed. Sign says that the building was closed due to unsafe conditions.

Brint’s Diner (actually Terry’s Diner) in Wichita, Kansas, is a Double Deluxe model of a Valentine Diner building.

Interior of Brint’s Diner.

For more about Valentine Diner’s check out these links:
Kansapedia: Valentine Portable Diners in Kansas

Valentine Diners Along Route 66 and Beyond.

Arthur Valentine’s Portable Diners.