Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Aug. 16

It's so hot. Let's start out today with some cool-looking flowers:

The high heat and humidity here in the mid-Atlantic have taken a toll on the flowers, but these Limelight hydrangeas are doing well!

The Pilot

That's a refreshing color!

And from Biden's Dog in Jerusalem:

Agapanthus flowers, commonly known as African lilies or Lily of the Nile.

Blue flowers are a treasure in summer. This looks like one of the more compact, prolific varieties of agapanthus. Love it.

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

From By-Tor:

Made the mistake of taking a nibble on one of my 2 million Scoville units Ghost Peppers. Instant pain and ten minutes of regret. It not a “sneaks up on you” heat; it’s instant full blown heat.
Not sure what I’m going to do with them, actually.
This summer heat here in SoCal seems to suit them, though.

This is NOT something that I would try. I have heard stories of guys doing challenges with extremely hot peppers, keeping ice cream on hand for themselves without informing "the mark" that eating ice cream after such a challenge is a good idea.

I also read a tip from J.L. Hudson, Seedsman on how to use these extremely hot peppers once. As I recall, he used one pepper in this class to flavor a bathtub full of sauce, which he canned. Or something like that.

Any other tips for By-Tor?

Here's a much milder pepper I grew years ago with marigold plants. The first flush of marigold flowers was about over in this photo. The peppers changed color from green to yellow to orange to red. Attractive and quite tasty, with heat in the range of an Anaheim pepper. The plant was bred to stay short, so it could be left in flower beds. Don't remember its name.

Zucchini and Tomato Casserole

• 4 medium zucchini, cubed
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh dill weed or 1.5 teaspoons dried dill
• ground black pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon margarine, melted
• 2 large tomatoes, sliced
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves
• 3/4 cup grated Romano cheese (feel free to substitute to your tastes)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 2-quart casserole dish.

2. Place zucchini in a pot fitted with a steamer basket over boiling water. Steam 5 minutes, or until tender but firm. Transfer to the casserole dish. Mix the dill, pepper, and margarine, and stir into the casserole dish, evenly coating zucchini. Layer tomato slices over zucchini, and sprinkle with basil and Romano cheese.

3. Bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until bubbly and golden brown.

Notes: You could mix some green pepper or chile and onion slices with the zucchini and maybe substitute a pinch of oregano for the dill for a nice variation.

If you want to peel the tomatoes, you could pay attention to whether or not the tomatoes you grow are easy to peel without blanching, like the great, early Cosmonaut Volkov, (Plants with Stories) or Sweet Tangerine. There are others.

We are starting to get tomato reports from The Horde, and it's time for a reminder that some information on different varieties is more reliable than other information. The story about Cosmonaut Volkov being chosen over 300 different varieties in honor of a cosmonaut who was killed in an accident is probably legit.

Last week, there was an exchange of legitimate information about the variety 'Black Strawberry' in the comments:

34 I recommend Black Strawberry for its prolific fruiting and long-lasting tomatoes, especially for sauce.
Posted by: Miley, okravangelist at August 09, 2025 02:40 PM

Never heard of it. Gonna have to order some seeds. Thanks.
Posted by: All Hail Eris, She-Wolf of the 'Ettes 'Ettes at August 09, 2025 02:52 PM

I had never heard of it, either, so I decided to look it up, and this was a quote from the first source I found, a lengthy article which seemed full of other malarkey, too. Everything You Wanted to Know About Black Strawberry Tomatoes:

Black strawberry tomatoes have been around for centuries and were first discovered by Italian farmers in the 18th century. The tomato variety was so named due to its unique dark-purple hue that resembles a large strawberry. They are grown in clusters of climbing plants, making them an ideal choice for home gardening and greenhouses.

The flavor of black strawberry tomatoes is more intense than traditional red tomatoes. They are also known to be very juicy and have a hint of sweetness, making them popular among chefs and cooks alike. We often find black strawberry tomatoes in farmers’ markets during the summer or in grocery stores sold as organic produce.

The story about the 18th Century Italian Farmers was just make up out of whole cloth. This is an anthocyanin (blue) tomato. They are a class of tomatoes which has only appeared on the market recently.

From Victory Seeds, a good source of tomato history:

60 days, indeterminate. A very early cherry tomato with high levels of anthocyanins. The colors vary widely depending on the sunlight shining directly on the fruit. More sun means darker colors, resulting in fruit ranging from strawberry to purple to nearly black. Very sweet flavored 2 ounce fruit. Derived from a cross between 'Bosque Blue' and 'Strawberry Tiger' tomatoes.

There is a slideshow of photos at the link. Their appearance varies a lot.

Rare Seeds (Baker Creek) has details on characteristics of the fruit, plus reviews.

Fantastic, sugar-sweet tomato flavor, that is fruity, with a hint of grape and plum flavors. If you relish the experience of digging into a bowl of high-quality cocktail tomatoes, then the Black Strawberry is your tomato. This 2-ounce fruit is marbled in purple, pink, green, and gold. This extremely productive and early variety is an obvious choice for gardeners and market farmers who want rugged, early-producing plants but do not want to sacrifice eating quality. This variety produces much diversity in color, and some plants may produce grape-shaped fruit. One of the best-tasting tomatoes we have tried!

Some of the variation in these tomatoes may come from throw-backs in individual plants to the parent varieties, because this variety was only bred recently.

You can find more information by looking up its parent tomatoes.

Ah, Nature

I’d like to announce I’m back on this app but since I don’t pay for premium, it will be seen by 4 people. Anyway to those 4 people, I captured something amazing this month 🐻 pic.twitter.com/f9ke1oU2NO

— Kris Luckenbach (@KrisLuckPhoto) July 21, 2025

Flowers enticing bears!

Sunflower Season is in Session

Mrs. Leggy's sunflowers are a tradition here:

Hi KT! I thought I would send some pictures of the sunflowers I grew this year. In past years, I grew sunflowers that turned into dinner-plate sized seed heads. Unfortunately, the neighborhood squirrels were murder on these flowers, knocking them over in their quest to get the seeds. What a mess! This year I chose an heirloom variety (see package). 6-8 feet tall with multiple flowers in a variety of colors. Rather than one large flower, I get to enjoy many more smaller flowers. The bees and goldfinches really love them!

The big pot of flowers is a tribute to my mom. She always planted petunias and marigolds. They are the easiest flowers to grow-sunlight, water and a little fertilizer and they grow like crazy. I cut them back from time to time and they continue to bloom all summer

Thanks for giving us the garden thread. It's a peaceful place to visit every Saturday!

Mrs. Leggy

I love those sunflowers, and the pot of flowers in honor of your mother is dreamy!

Gardens of The Horde

This spring, Hrothgar sent us a photo of Rhododendrons "Bee Blooming"

And Azaleas (Fading Fast)

But I can't tell they're fading. They're beautiful!

Anything new happening in your garden? We have an aggressive gopher.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden at g mail dot com

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, August 9

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.