You Say Tomato, I say RePot-O

Today I repotted all the tomatoes in the greenhouse.  They are looking mah-velous.  Despite having grown up in the greenhouse, their stems are nice and sturdy, and they are covered with blossoms.  I spy a good tomato season.  My plan is to open the doors and windows on warm days to be certain they are pollenated by passing insects.  It's my understanding, however, that tomatoes pollenate easily and that all one really needs to do is to shake the stems.  They got a good shaking in the repotting process.

Originally, my plan was to plant the dill outside.  It's looking so good right now that I decided to give it a larger pot too, and for now, I'm just going to let it stay in the greenhouse.  I figure, why mess with success?

We harvested the first greenhouse lettuce leaves last night for our hamburgers.  Boy, did we feel smug.

The flowers in the garden are as beautiful as they get all year right now.  The last of the rhododendrons are opening.

Here are some fully opened from the same bush.

This deep purple one is my favorite, made more so because we nearly killed it in the beginning.  It was still in a pot, and we asked our son to water it while we were out of town.  In fairness to our son, it was stuck back in a corner, and it was easy to miss it.  He did a great job on the watering, but this rhodie got missed.  The weather was as hot as it gets in Oregon during the week we were gone, and when we came home, it was a crispy critter.  Mike stuck it in a bucket of water, and amazingly, it came back.  It has taken a long time to come into its own, but the past couple of years it has been beautiful.

It is always the last to open.

Here is one fully opened from the same bush.  Mr. Bumblebee likes it too.

And this is my favorite azalea.  It has a ruffled petal that makes it look like a carnation.

The azaleas have all bloomed at this point, and some of the flowers are beginning to dry out.  This one is still gorgeous.

The last of the tulips.

The white bearded iris have opened.  Is there anything more elegant than a bearded iris?

I noticed a little spider living in the back of this one.

Cat of many dollars.  You can see where they shaved the fur off his neck to draw blood while he was sick.  It takes absolutely forEVER to grow back.

So, you don't really need a time machine to see the future.  All you need to do is walk around the garden.

Future purple iris:

Future red-leaf maple tree:

Future pasta sauce:

Future plum chutney (plums on the plum tree . . . highly sought after, rarely seen):

Future snuggles:

Future snacking:

Future strawberry shortcake and strawberry ice cream:

Future pine trees:

Future cherry pie:

And in my future?  Sewing.