Monday's Movements

Good morning, my friends. It's the last Tuesday in June. Where does the time go? Do you realize we'll be in the back half of 2023 by next week? And didn't we just ring in the new year, like, two weeks ago? Sadie is exhausted just thinking about it. I left her stretched to her full length in Mike's lap. Even stretched to her full length, she's not very big. 

There were both indoor and outdoor chores to take care of yesterday. Outdoors, I hoed the vegetable garden, and then took a little walk around. The day lilies are opening, although only just a few.

I was thrilled to see the tiniest little green shoot coming from the second try on the Bumble Rumble dahlia. We're being very careful not to overwater this one, although I honestly don't believe we overwatered the first one. Fingers crossed this one will grow and thrive.

Now here's something: When I purchased tomato plants last December, I ordered nine Nova sauce tomatoes, and one Legend slicing tomato. The Legend had all great reviews. It's the second time I've grown one, but I don't remember what happened in the first go-round. This time around, all nine of the Nova plants have green tomatoes. The Legend has none. It has bloomed, and I've touched its flowers with my soft make-up brush. Still, I can't find a single tomato on the plant.

So, I wrote to Territorial Seed, where I got the tomatoes and told them everything I could think of about the plant and its care so far. My question: do I need two plants for cross-pollination? Apparently not. This was their response:

Thank you for reaching out. You don't need two tomato plants to get tomatoes, they can pollinate themselves. Cross pollination is possible if both varieties are open pollinated and an insect happens to land on the flowers. but it would not affect any fruit or fruit production for this season. If the Legend has bloomed, that means it will be producing fruit and the Legend matures just a bit later than the Nova. If you are getting weather above the 80's, the plant may not be focusing on producing. Let us know if you have any further questions, we are happy to help.

Okay, so I don't need two plants, but I got stuck on that "weather above the 80's" part of their response. For sure, it often gets above 80°F. in the greenhouse. And so we decided to move it outside. It can sit in the space beside the dahlias just outside the greenhouse door. Maybe it's just too hot inside the greenhouse. 

I've often considered moving all the tomatoes outside and into the garden during the warm weather. We could always move them back inside when cooler weather returns in the fall. On the other hand, plants heavy with tomatoes would be difficult to move. So, I believe we'll just move this one slicing tomato outside and see how it does. 

So, that brought me to the end of my outdoor chores. Inside, there were still a few things to do. Eventually, there was time for sewing. I still needed to add borders to the baby quilt, and that made a finished quilt top at 50 x 50 inches.

And then, I pieced together a back for it:

And then, I cut the binding strips. Yes, I did decide on a different fabric for the binding.

And then, I sandwiched it for quilting.

That brought me to the end of the day. I'll get going on the quilting today. It shouldn't take long. I'll just do a straight-line diagonal grid. It probably won't get finished today, but you never know.

I haven't looked at the calendar yet today, and so I have no idea where the day is going. Right now, it's time for breakfast, and that seems like a good place to start.