Enjoying the Fruits

Or, maybe vegetables?

Today I had my annual BLT fest with hydroponic lettuce from Farmer's Market and Struan bread also from the market and my own main crop Ace 55 tomatoes. And, I had my first roast eggplant and made spanish rice from the Roma tomatoes. All other meals also include cherry tomatoes, a huge bounty from the single gum drop plant. 

 

 

 

 

 

I lost track of varieties - I think all but one are Little Prince

I brushed both sides with olive oil 
mixed with garlic and cumin
Roasted for 30 minutes, turned once

 

End of July Catchup

Harvest

Most vegetables are going very well! I believe my tomatoes have hung on with less disease longer into the season this year. I've got cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and a couple of slicing tomatoes, all from the in-ground plants. I picked more shishito peppers (but they had turned red). There are a few small peppers in the GS tower, and several small round eggplants I may pick today. 

The middle tower, with micro tomatoes, is not doing well. This is the one that fell over and had to be re-stacked and re-planted. More than half of the plants have died, and the rest are very scrawny. 

The curcurbits are coming along

 

I planted the zucchini, cucumbers and melons only on June 30. I thinned before leaving on vacation, and they are all looking quite vigorous now. Plus, there is a volunteer cucumber when last year's were growing. So looking good, but no fruit and little flowering yet on any of them.

Time to fertilize and spray them. 

End of June Catchup

 OOOPS! I've done some work, but I've not been posting. Here's a catchup to the state of the art:

I've built a new area at the end of my driveway for vegetables. It turns out to be the sunniest place in the whole yard! I moved the Vespa last year, but fully built out the spot and caged it (mostly) in this year. It's still open at the end towards the house. So far this year, there has been one deer foray into it - the deer walked all the way in and cropped some of the tomatoes in pots on the left, and peppers in the blue Greenstalk at the far end. The barriers are pvc pipe just stuck together, with netting positioned via zip ties. I pounded rebar into the ground and pushed the pvc pipes over it, to hold it up and in place. Kinda frail, but not terrible. At the end, facing the street, I had some metal trellises - again, not very sturdy - and pushed them into the driveway. Outside the end I put my citrus trees in pots - the deer do not like them, and they have thorns.

Three towers: eggplants in green closest, cherry tomatoes in the middle, peppers in blue at the end.
There are three big tomato pots on the left, and a shishito pepper in the green bag. Photo 6/25/26

I put four tomato plants into the ground inside half the big netting cage. They are going gangbusters. Also one basil plant, just inside the door.

The four are Gumdrop, Ace 55, Roma,
and some "better boy" type from Home Depot.
The Gumdrop, a cherry tomato, is pushing the 
top of the netting already.

 I plan to plant zucchini and melons in the other half, maybe today. I delayed hoping to avoid the worst of the squash vine borer bloom.

I also have my decorative pots in the back. They get at least a half day of sun.

A deer came by and ate the tops of my glads 
(tall spikes in mid-left) after I watered this morning!

 I also planted a strawberry tower this spring. I've gotten three ripe strawberries from it. One I picked at ate immediately. Two I picked, set down for a minute, and Bixby ate them.

I had netting on it at first. 
I can put it back if squirrels become a problem.

 My favorite part of gardening: being done!

My companions are always there!

 

Getting the Crops In

Strawberries!
I had the cover from something else.
My squirrels and birds like to uproot the plants.

Yesterday was a productive day for gardening. I planted my bare-root strawberries in the pink Greenstalk (along with two different strawberry plants from the hardware store). The plants, from Park Seed, arrived a week or two ago and I had plopped them in the fridge until yesterday. So they are used to cold-ish (38 degrees in the fridge).

23 slots, tomatoes on the right, peppers on the left
Peppers for a GS tower, most tomatoes for ground or pots

I started tomatoes and peppers in my Aerogarden. I believe my hydroponics gives seeds a week or two advantage. I also started some pak choi in the large Harvest AG, maybe for keeping inside, maybe for going out. All these new plants should be fine until I get back from France.

 

My brave little Golden Harvest!

I also had plopped some old AG tomato seed pods into the AG slim. They are from 2022 - I didn't expect much. But at least two plants have sprouted, one each of an Heirloom Cherry and a Golden Harvest. I would put these in a Greenstalk.

More plans, but it's raining right now, so thinking of inside things. 

Still Gardening

Last night, I dipped into the freezer and 
got my second-to-last bag of my tomatoes,
and my last peppers, to make a sauce.

It's February, and that means there is a stack of seed catalogs on my coffee table four inches high. I just placed an order for seeds and supplies, due in next week. At the end of last season, I bought some planters on sale, and I've been musing about where they go (in my limited sun) and how to protect them from deer (my excellent deer fence mostly protects the shady part - the bulk of - my yard).

In the mean time, I am growing inside. I did a round of lettuce that all got eaten the week before I went on vacation. I'm participating in a group challenge for indoor growing - my online group selected specific vegetables and varieties, and we all planted them at the same time. It's not a competition, we're comparing notes and tips. I've got cherry tomatoes, shishito peppers, and nasturtiums going, besides a basil plant on the window sill. I've got the usual house plants inside, including three citrus under a strong grow light - two limes and a lemon, I think, though since there is little to no fruit its hard to be sure. Plant tending is a great putter while listening to a book or podcast.

Tomatoes and peppers in the basement

Closeup of the pepper plants blooming away
I do some fertilizing them using an old electric toothbrush

My kitchen window, just before going away
Tomato, basil, thyme, pepper in window
nasturtium in tabletop unit
I also like having the bright lights in the kitchen

 

Vegetable Bounty

Salad tomatoes, paste tomatoes, cucumbers,
mini cucumbers, peppers, cherry tomatoes

 There's a pretty good harvest going in some of the vegetables. I don't pick every day - I plan for when I can spend time cooking or otherwise preserving the harvest. The peppers were coming on strong when I got home from vacation on August 1. The cherry tomatoes were also full steam. The cucumbers were just starting.

Banana peppers, long green peppers, eggplants, basil,
shishito peppers

I grew two types of main crop tomatoes - early girl, and money maker. I think the ones I'm getting are money maker. They are big salad-sized, not huge slicers. They are still going strong, after a month. 

 I grew San Marzano roma-types. That plant started turning yellow from the bottom up, but I still got more than one sauce crop out of it. 

The bulk of the cherry tomatoes are gumdrop. They are bigger and darker than most cherry tomatoes. The plant in a pot is not doing well, but the one in the ground has become a jungle all by itself. It spread to all four trellis supports, and then up through the roof of the crop cage to cover it!  The fruits from the potted one are much smaller. I'm guessing the constrained roots can't support the rampant growth.

 I'm growing several varieties of sweet peppers in the green stalk. Mostly I cook with them, though I have some small bells that I have eaten as snacks. I bought a single shisito pepper plant at farmer's market and it has been prolific from June on. I fry the peppers in olive oil whole and just chomp them while holding onto the stem. Tasty!

The little eggplants persist. Every week or so I get a handful and cook them up in the oven or air fryer. I've mostly been eating them as a single dish, but this week I added the cooked eggplant to a ground lamb dish I had made, and it was not entirely unlike moussaka, after I added creme fraiche for creaminess. 

Roasted eggplant and fried shisito peppers

I have two kinds of cucumbers, pickle sized and full sized. I mostly eat the small ones as finger food, just munching on them. I grated up most of a full sized one to added to yogurt and garlic to make tzatziki sauce. Yum! I'm getting a half dozen little ones a week, which is more than I want to eat. But they are good snacks.

I seem to have failed to take a picture of my single zucchini. I have several very healthy plants, no sign of vine borers or other blights, but there are only male blossoms! I spotted one embryonic female about to bloom, and came back 48 hours later to find it a foot long and past optimal picking. I keep searching under the foliage but see no other fruits happening.

 My countertops are full of vegetables ready to be processed. I visited a friend and was amused to find she was the same, with tomatoes finishing ripening and peppers needing to be frozen.

I'm popping cherry tomatoes into bags and right into the freezer, whole and raw. I hear they will still make good sauce, which makes sense. The peppers I either cut and freeze raw, or saute with onions and freeze that way. I'm eating some form of pepper-and-tomato saute, some form of spaghetti, a couple of times a week. The eggplants get eaten right away, and I don't know if its possible to preserve cucumbers, so some of those go to waste.

Early August: It's a Jungle Out There!

The pot farm

 I hired a neighborhood urchin to water my plants in pots while I was gone. The pots need watering every day it doesn't rain - but it rained a lot! I had told the kid to help himself to vegetables, but there were still plenty for me. Things will start coming fast!

I have one tower of peppers (none hot). They are prolific!

I have one tower of eggplants, giant plants, the little fruits are coming in.

The middle tower had pak choi, but I harvested all of it and need to put something in - maybe flowers? Visit to Home Depot in my future. 

Harvest

Harvest cleaned up and ready to cook

Tomatoes on the left growing through the roof
Zucchini and cucumbers on the right; 
blooming but no fruit yet.

 

Where to Put my Vegetables?

 I have limited space to grow vegetables. While I have a substantial yard, I can only grow vegetables where there is (1) sufficient sun and (2) protection from the deer. In addition, I'm reluctant to plop a vegetable bed down smack dab in the middle of my yard - I'd rather have them on the edges. As a consequence, these are the spaces I have:

This is a metal 3'x4' raised bed on the side of my house.
It is planted right now with broccoli and red cabbage.

This is a wooden 4'x8' raised bed I built years ago, at the back of my house.
I bought the frame and netting that covers it (new netting this year).
It has tomatoes in half of it, and I plan for zucchini in the other half.

This is a collection of pots, all planted with tomatoes.
They are easily moveable. Currently sitting on a wooden pallet
next to my driveway. Needs more deer & rabbit protection.

These are my latest additions, "Greenstalks". Not a gimmick.
Each tier has six pockets, so I have 72 planting pockets to fill.
I'm in the process of building a barrier behind them for deer protection.
They are where the Vespa used to park, at the end of my driveway.
(Now the Vespa is on dirt in the shade, I need to build a new pad).

 I try to rotate my crops in the raised beds, to minimize pests that overwinter in the soil. Last year in the metal bed I raised zucchini, so this year I've gone for the brassicas, broccoli and cabbage. Also, conveniently, this bed was easy to clean and prepare for spring planting with the addition of bagged compost, so it was ready when I spotted broccoli, a cold weather crop, at Home Depot. Last year, the big 4x8 bed had tomatoes in one half, and corn and beans in the other half. So this year, I've put tomatoes in the half that had corn, and I plan to put zucchini in the other half once it warms up enough.

I refresh the dirt in the pots and the greenstalk, so rotation isn't necessary. Basically, I empty them out (usually to a tarp on the ground) and then stir new compost and maybe new potting soil into the old dirt. I fish out any big chunks of last year's roots, and then put the refreshed mixture back in the containers. It's actually a fair amount of work, but since I wanted to move and add greenstalks, it was worth it this year.

The big experiments are the Greenstalks. I belong to some on-line gardening groups which is where I learned about them. I had seven tiers split into two stacks last year, mostly with peppers and basil. They revolve on their bases, so I can vary the sun exposure. This year, I have twelve tiers, with six spots each, for a total of 72 planting pockets. But I've started more seeds than I have spaces!

So far I have 18 various peppers out in the bottom 3 tiers of the light green tower; lettuce and scallions from seed in its top tier. The top tier of the mixed tower has various herbs from farmers market; the second tier has mini cabbage plants. Inside under lights I have a dozen pak chois, six Swiss chards, 18 eggplants, and 30 (!) basils coming along. The seedlings are too small, and it's too cold, to set them out today - but it'll be time soon!

I'll be able to squeeze a bunch of basil plants along the perimeter and between tomato and zucchinis in the big raised bed. Discounting them, I've got 36 planting pockets, and 36 seedlings (12 pak choi + 6 chard + 18 eggplants), so it just works out! 

Also, I am going to start harvesting my broccoli (in the metal raised bed) today. It'll continue to bear from side shoots for a while, but I may end up ripping it out and putting something completely different in there. Some of the herbs and greens in the greenstalks will also sputter out and I'll be able to put something new there. So as long as I don't go overboard at farmer's markets or starting any more of my many seeds, I guess I'll be ok.

Still Growing!

I'm still kind of coasting on gardening this year, but I haven't been completely inactive.

First, on the coasting, I've got some blooms showing up from prior years:

The trout lilies have made a big patch,
but not so many blooms

The bloodroot continues to shine bright
It moves around as the ants plant seeds

The sole remaining tulip from a big bunch
planted in 2019.

I do have plans for vegetables this year. I've rearranged some things in the yard, because I realized the parking pad I built for the Vespa was the sunniest spot in the whole yard. So I moved the Vespa, and I'll be doing Greenstalks on the parking pad. (Need to build a new pad for the Vespa but right now its on the dirt.) I'm rotating crops in the ground - I'll grow cruciferous veggies in the raised bed where the zucchini was last year. I got a six pack of broccoli at Home Depot and plopped them in there, after topping off the bed with LeafGro and compost. I plan to put tomatoes in the half of the big raised bed where I had the corn and beans last year, and zucchini in the half where the tomatoes were. I'll need to put some tomatoes in pots.

My baby broccoli

The hard thing is deciding how to fill up three 4-tier greenstalks - a total of 72 planting pockets. I need to get going on seed starts or buying plants will bankrupt me!
 

Countertop Gardening

Lettuces. Could be eaten at this size, but
I'm greedy and keep them going.

 I'm still using my indoor hydroponic gardens, though all but the basement tomatoes were shut down for the summer. I started lettuces and bok choi the second week of October. I was able to start eating in about five weeks. I started my second batch of lettuce then - the third week of November. 

Baby bok choi

I finished the bok choi (baby sized) the first week of December - so about 9 weeks total. The first batch of lettuces, which I'd been using for salads and sandwiches straight through from when I started the harvest, was pretty much done by then. I left them, and got a few more leaves before finally trashing them this week - so 10 weeks total.

Isn't this gorgeous?

I started swiss chard about a week after the first batch of lettuce, mid-October. Tonight I based a meal around harvested chard - the third time I've done that. It'll keep going, I think, for quite some time. I base my harvests on when it grows too tall for the container, and the stems are still relatively small and easy to cook and eat. I could move the chard to jars to get bigger, but I'm going for at least one more batch in the machine. I think they are really attractive! They brighten the place up considerably.

Post harvest, I swear they grew an inch in a couple of hours!
I think these will keep going for quite some time.

I've started a batch of herbs, just last week. Not all have even sprouted yet.

2024 Vegetable Wrap-Up

My peppers, bought onions

I thought I would recap what happened this year, what worked and what didn't work. It was my most successful vegetable gardening in years. While we haven't had a frost yet, and the plants are mostly still alive, there won't be any more harvests.

First, peppers. I only put them in the Greenstalk, my rotating vertical grower. They did very very well. When I first set them in place, they took a small beating from small pests (holes in the leaves) but I sprayed with an organic bug spray and also trapped many slugs in beer traps, and from then on they took off. I watered daily during the drought and I fertilized them every couple of weeks through the end of July. 

I probably won't grow the same varieties of peppers again. I mostly planted "mini-bells", sweet peppers that only get to be a few inches big. They were very tasty, but WAY TOO MUCH WORK TO EAT!!!  The teeny little things required de-seeding just like a big bell, but it took a lot of them to make a meal. The orange variety seemed much more prolific than the red ones, and I had a purely green, round, one as well (Cupid) with an especially good taste. I also planted one variety of normal-sized banana peppers, long and skinny, and they were good, but more prone to insect damage than the others. I'm going to look for classic bells and fatter Italian frying peppers next year. (I do not do hot peppers.)

And basil! I had SO MUCH basil! I started 24 basil plants from seed, and plopped in a plant to each of the unused slots in the Greenstalk. I had four varieties - Napolitano, Genovese, Tuscany, and Thai. I also put a half-dozen plants into the ground. I had basil extravaganza for the whole summer! It loved the heat, and I watered daily during the drought. The Thai basil plants in the ground got as tall as me! It's not my favorite variety of Thai, I'll look for a new one next year. I bought parsley plants, flat leaf and curly, at farmer's market and put in the Greenstalk, where they did well. I also bought cilantro plants, twice, and placed in the Greenstalk, but they both died quickly.

And tomatoes! I did regular tomatoes in the ground and in individual pots, and cherry tomatoes in the Greenstalks. (Same variety cherry tomato as I grow inside hydroponically.)  I basically got no cherry tomatoes outside, maybe one or two. I think the bunnies may have gotten to them - they were accessible, though slightly protected. And my big tomatoe plants were partially protected. I had four plants in the ground, inside netting that was easily broken by the animals - and it was shredded by them on Bastille Day, in the middle of July, when the plants were bursting with plenty of green tomatoes and no ripe ones. (see this post). I had picked a few green-but-clearly-ripening tomatoes before the massacre. I repaired the damage as best I could a few days later, and the plants survived their haircuts and proceeded to set a new crop of fruit. I got maybe a dozen tomatoes in all (maybe a bit more). The tomato plants in pots were basically unprotected from the critters and took many haircuts besides having fruit stolen. I did get a couple of handfuls of tomatoes from the five plants in pots. I fertilized all the tomato plants every 2-3 weeks (pots slightly more often) through the end of July. I don't think I fertilized after that.

I did two of the three sisters, corn and beans. I got some little corn before the massacre. The beans, inter-planted at the foot of the corn stalks, continued to grow post-massacre, and I harvested a few handfuls of very attractive pods. I shelled the beans, they yielded about 3/4 of a cup, and boiled them, ate them in a vinegar and oil dressing, and was pleased. But I don't know that either the corn or beans were worth the garden space. Corn from the farmer's market is easier, and I like beans from a can. 

I had my best zucchini harvest in years! It wasn't anything to boast about, by zucchini growing standards, but I actually got maybe a dozen or more zucchini to eat! I planted in my raised bed with new soil, and draped the whole thing with insect netting, fastened down all around the edge of the bed. After the plants started blooming with female blossoms, I replaced the fine-meshed insect netting with wider-meshed critter netting, to allow for natural pollination while still keeping the deer, rabbits and squirrels out. I watered, but far from daily, maybe more like weekly. I sprayed the plants with the organic insect spray, put out slug traps (but slugs didn't seem a problem) and sprayed a couple of times with BT, which is specific for caterpillars. I think I thwarted the squash vine borer, which is a moth that lays its eggs inside the vines, for the emergent caterpillars to eat their way out. 

This was my first year for potatoes! I bought seed potatoes on impulse at the hardware store, and I planted them into three 5-gallon growbags. I harvested one bag at the end of July, and the other two about 10 days ago. It was so fun to peel back the bag, and plunge my hands into the dirt feeling for the little potatoes! The thing to worry about potatoes is their turning green. The green is actually just chlorophyll, which is fine, but bad chemicals (solanine) often develop as the potatoes are turning green. I scrubbed, cooked and ate the potatoes the day they were harvested, and I think a few of the potatoes had some solanine. Some of them were bitter to the taste, and I felt queasy after eating them. How odd, but I won't be doing potatoes again. 

But it's all an experiment, and the fun is in the doing and finding out. I don't know what I'll do next year, but whatever I do, I know I need better pest and critter barriers.

Promises Fulfilled!

On the cloth, clockwise from top right:
Sweet Sunset banana peppers,
Cupid pepper mini-bell,
Fresh Orange not-yet-ripe,
Flambo Shell beans,
Fresh Orange mini-bell,
Fresh Red mini-bell,
with various tomatoes along the top.

 Tomatoes and peppers, and a few beans.

I'm picking tomatoes before they are fully ripe, because critters (probably squirrels) are also going for them, though they like them soft and red. 

I'm pretty sure I'll be making a version of spaghetti sometime soon. Right now, I've got the banana peppers cooking slowly in a pan with onions - going for a couple of hours.

I'll have to do some research on what to do with the beans. The idea is to eat the beans not the pods. I don't know if they can be boiled and eaten right away, or if they need to be dried, and then soaked, before cooking.

More Promises

I've been getting lots of little peppers! They are cute, but a lot of work to eat, because each has to be cleaned. I've also had 4-5 more zucchini! Officially the best zucchini year ever! The outdoor cherry tomatoes are smaller than the plants inside, and less prolific. I did fertilize all the greenstalk veggies about a week ago, to keep them going.

Inside the crop cage,
with dead corn propping them up

But the big news is the big tomato plants have come back from their animal depredations and are full of green tomatoes! The ones in pots have a few tomatoes and more blooms. The ones in the crop cage a really big and have several tomatoes. I did patch the crop cage, but it's still vulnerable. We'll see if the critters feel a need to assault it. I'll definitely pick before ripeness, but they are solidly green now and its too early to pick them. I like to see them starting to change color before I pick.

Today's Haul

Today's haul

 I harvested the most and nicest zucchini I've grown in years! OK, it's TWO smallish ones, but it's still record-setting. And, I've got more coming along, and so far the protection is working.

In other news, there might not be any more outdoor tomatoes. My big plants have all been mauled by large critters. I do have healthy indoor cherry tomato plants producing away.

On the plus side, there are several small pepper plants coming along with small fruit on them, all in my greenstalk planter. And, of course, more than enough basil (and parsley) to feed the entire Italian army. 

The zucchini behind its barrier
(too many plants, should have thinned)

Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May

Munched corn, with a big new hole
in the netting visible.

My garden, on the cusp of delivering on its bountiful promise of just a few days ago, has been decimated! My crop cage, string netting surrounding and covering my big wood bed where my corn and tomatoes are, has been shredded. I think deer may have breached it initially, but yesterday the squirrels made it their own and ravaged it completely. Pretty much every ear of corn has been munched to nothing. The tomatoes are all gone, and the plants are buckled and broken. 

Five years I’ve had the net, and finally it was breached. I think the heat and drought are driving the beasts to get more creative and forceful to eat lush moist vegetables.

Only the basil remains almost untouched. 

I’m so glad I harvested corn and tomatoes when I did. I’ll see what happens to the ravaged tomato plants- they may survive. 

I still have 4 tomato plants in pots, but they have been pruned back by munching deer and aren’t showing a lot of fruit. They are not well protected at all. But squirrels rarely go there. We’ll see how it goes.

I also have the greenstalk towers, with cherry tomatoes and tiny peppers, and basil. Something to take care of and pick from. I also have the zucchini, sequestered in its own bed. It’s protected from a casual browse, but not from a determined assault. 

Now I have to think through more sturdy pest control solutions. Sigh. 

Tomato Massacre

This morning, when I went out to water my plants in pots, I discovered one of them had been completely massacred! The huge pot had been overturned and emptied with the dirt spread all over the driveway. The large Early Girl tomato plant, previously covered with green tomatoes, was snapped off at the ground level, shredded and denuded of all fruit. Sigh. All gone, nothing to do about it. I assume a deer. I moved around my remaining pots to use my large lime tree (which has thorns) to protect the remaining pots. But they are not behind a big fence, so they remain vulnerable.

But it's far from only bad news in the garden. I decided to make a harvest today, partly because I figured I'd better grab some before the animals do!

I've got a small harvest of tomatoes, mostly salad-sized, mostly Early Girl variety. I picked some that are not yet fully ripe - there is a school of thought that says it relieves the plant of a burden so it can continue to make more tomatoes. Once tomatoes start to ripen, they will continue even if picked. And flavor is based on the variety of tomato, not on maturity when picked. (Modern tasteless supermarket tomatoes result from breeding varieties for good transport qualities while ignoring taste - it doesn't have to do with when they are picked.)

I planted a few pepper varieties, based on seeds I already had in the house. None of the peppers are full-sized bell peppers. I've got banana peppers, and small bells that will turn bright colors. I picked some yellow bananas and tiny green bells. I'll probably let the next tranche ripen to more vivid colors.

I went ahead and picked some of my corn! What I read was it's ready to be picked when the corn silk turns brown. But I saw ears with a lot of the silk just gone - and the ears had a lot of ants crawling on them. All of my gardening is only entertainment and experiments, so I figured let's just go see whats going on inside the husks. 

The ears are small and misshapen, and the kernels are irregular. But there are some regular-sized kernals, and I think I'll use a knife to cut off the good ones and cook them in a skillet as part of a veggie saute. (Apparently each thread of cornsilk is tied to a specific kernel - if it gets fertilized, it grows into a plump kernel.)

I've also made my zucchini more vulnerable to pests, but also open to being pollinated by insects. I had it completely under insect mesh, and I attempted some manual fertilization. But I haven't had great success with that. I was defending against a pest called the Squash Vine Borer, but supposedly it's an early season pest, so the odds are much less it will show up now. So now it's under a larger plastic mesh, which hopefully keeps deer and rabbits away, but allows the beneficial insects in.

Full of Promise

Early Girl tomatoes

Right now, the vegetable garden is still looking good. My tomato plants in the ground and in pots are all thriving - no sign of disease, leaves not munched by anything, many blooms and a few fruit forming. One of my tomato plants in the ground, an Early Girl variety, is taller than me. Peppers in my greenstalk towers have recovered from their original slug leaf holes, and just now starting to flower. The corn is about waist high, and I planted beans between the stalks and they are up about six inches; they are not yet climbing up the corn as they are supposed to. The zucchini in its veiled bed has sprung up into giant plants. They are not yet blooming at all, but the plants are big and healthy. My potatoes in bags are full to the top with dirt and just now starting to bloom. The book says that's the time they start making little potatoes down below. I'm very excited about the potatoes!

My zucchini under its anti-bug veil

I've been tending the plants much more this year than in past years. I've used bug spray and slug pellets. I water nearly every day if it doesn't rain. I amended the soil heavily before planting, and I've fertilized all of the fruiting vegetables a couple of times now. I have a rough schedule - the next round of fertilization will be around the end of the month. 

My greenstalk with peppers, herbs
and cherry tomatoes

But it's still mostly promise at this point, nothing to actually eat! Except, in the greenstalks, I planted herbs and one swiss chard (chard was my only successful outdoor vegetable last year). I had to cut back some of the basils and parsleys and dills and the big leaves of the chard. I washed and cleaned them up, and will sautee the chard with some of the herbs - I think I might make an omelet with a bunch of the rest of the herbs and have that for dinner with the chard.