This is the view this morning. The Olympics are there, somewhere, in that smoke. And air quality is about 170. British Columbia and eastern Washington are burning up.
It's a good time to work on tomatoes. I'm not thrilled with the varieties we grew. The San Marzanos are good so I'm drying and freezing them. They're cut in half and ready to go in the oven here. Doing this every week or so. The little bagged ones are an experimental roma type being developed by a university in Florida, I think. Got the seeds from a neighbor and they grow nicely but the flavor is disappointing. I'm freezing them whole for use later. The three round ones in front are an experimental beefsteak type. Some really grow huge, but as with the others, the flavor disappoints. The Siletz plant is ramping down production. There a just a few fruits left that are ripening slowly. They are about on par with the experimentals in flavor. I did like growing in pots. Will do again next year, but won't grow any of the same varieties. In the meantime. I'm freezing enough tomatoes to last the year and letting the ducks into the greenhouse to pick the low hanging fruit. They are crazy for tomatoes and quite clever at finding them.
I cleared the disastrous asparagus bed of weeds and am going to put peony poppies here instead. I put tarps over it to keep weeds out until seed is ready. If we get around to building a new raised bed this winter we'll give asparagus another try, but it needs to be raised well above grass level this time.
We visited the local nurseries to find a particular trailing ceanothus for the front bed without luck, but found this luscious heather, Red Fred, instead and brought home two.
This is my favorite heather. The pink, orange and light green colors during bloom are outstanding. Winter color is brick red. I think it's Firefly but there seem to be several similar so I'm not sure.
