I am at the point where I am going to stop counting the fruit that are on the plants and just count the fruit that come off. I have well over 200 tomatoes on my plants now with more on the way.

This first picture is from my Carbon Tomato that was a megabloom. It is very ugly, but I can’t wait to see how big it will get, and once it starts to darken I think it will be a very pretty piece of fruit.

This next one is from my Purple Russian plant, which is a roma shaped tomato. If you notice the one in the upper left was also a megabloom, so the shape on the tomato is quite a bit different.

This next one is my biggest tomato so far, as well as the most productive plant. It is the Golden King of Siberia, and this one seems pretty close to a pound already. My hands are a pretty decent size, and I threw a quarter in there for reference. Reading reviews on this plant it is said that it may not be the tastiest tomato out there but they are very productive.

This is my Green Malakite plant. It is the king of the garden right now and over 5 feet tall. Over 20 fruit on this plant and looking forward to slicing it up for some grilled cheese or BLT’s.

This is from my Sungold Select II plant, and I mistakenly thought earlier in the week that it was my Black Cherry plant.

The next 3 are Brave General, Cosmonaut Volkov, and then Monomahk’s Hat (I am not sure which is which on the first two).

The last tomato here is from my Cour Di Bue plant, an italian oxheart. A very pretty tomato, I cannot wait to bite into one of these.

My peppers are doing really well too. I am a little disappointed that I have less Jalapeno plants than I thought. I still have 8 plants, but the two that I thought were regular Jalapenos turned out to be Bishop’s Crown peppers.

This is one of my Early Jalapenos.

Here is my favorite, my Purple Jalapeno. I might have to eat one of these this week, they just look tasty.

The last pepper here is from my Big Jim plant. This pepper is a monster!

The rest of the garden is growing great. The Basil is in need of some pruning, I would love to try making pesto. We had our first two zucchini last night for supper, and the carrots are starting to get to edible size.

Next week will be a very late post, probably not until Saturday night. Going on a bit of a holiday as the brits say it. Hopefully it rains a bit here at home while I am gone 🙂

All the pictures I am going to share with you today are actually from Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.  I spent a bit of time in the yard these days. Andy had sprayed for mosquitoes over the weekend, so I was able to enjoy the yard without being under attack.   I had read a really lame gardening book Monday night while I sat at dance class, and while I found the entire book condescending and totally not for this area, I did take one thing away from it.  When you’re trying to make the most of your space, first, you should see what you can do with things you have on hand.  Gardening- especially vegetable gardening- should not be an expensive hobby.  By gum, he was right, so Tuesday morning I eyed up my yard, eyed up the various things I had around the yard, and I went to work- taking pictures along the way.

First up, I have a picture of my pea tower.

Using two tomato cages, zip-tied together worked beautifully.  My lesson learned this year is that I need to add some tendrils to the cages- using string or fishing line to give more options for the vines to climb up.  The other lesson learned is that if we want enough peas to enjoy, I probably need to have four of these towers going.   Since tomato cages and zip ties are incredibly inexpensive, this is how I will grow peas from now on.  Not only is it effective, but visually, it’s very pleasing to look at.

Next I have a photo of my small greens patch- these are from my very first plantings in the yard.

They’ve taken forever to do anything, but they finally perked up.  There are two heads of romaine, a dozen beets, some bright lights chard and then some scallions.   They’re all chewed on, but looking perky these days.   I’m thinking the scallions are simply going to remain unpicked.  I will let them winter over, and then next spring I will have some great spring onions to enjoy.

Here are the pole beans and the butternut squash.  They’re growing well, and I added a second level of taller bamboo poles for the beans to grow up, and the squash to grow down.

And what’s this?

Ah, this is a butternut squash blossom.  Anyone who’s followed my blog for a while knows that I plant butternut squash pretty much every year, and I have yet to be rewarded with a squash.  This year, I bought established plants, and they’re doing great so far.  The one problem so far?  This blossom is a male blossom- and none of the females are open for business yet.  I am planning to self pollinate, but first I need both genders of blossom to do so.

Next there’s my second sowing of chard, with a line of kale behind it.

Again, these are getting chewed up, so I don’t know what results I’ll have.  I would really like to get some greens to grow so I can freeze some.  I really like what they add to soups and stews in the winter.

Next I have my strawberry plants.

They’re growing like gangbusters, but I’m not getting any berries- they are being eaten before I can get to them.  But for this year, I’m okay with that.  I’m really just trying to establish the plants this year, so if we only get a berry or two, that’s fine by me as long as the plants keep growing so well.

My tomato plants seem very grateful for the additional sunshine Andy has given them.  In the last week they’ve really shot up and put out more blossoms.

Today when I went out I found that my Sungold and my Brave General have the first tomatoes on them.  YAY!  In the next week I expect to have to move a little faster in getting the plants trellised and tied up. I’ll definitely take pictures of how I do that.

My pepper plants are full of blossoms too- and some are beginning to push peppers as well.

I lost a sweet pepper in our mid-week storm this week, but the hot ones are all still doing well.  They seem to like the additional sun as well.

Here’s a picture of a geranium a friend gave me.  They really add a nice punch of pretty to an ugly part of the yard.

I have interesting fungus in the yard too.  I realize they may be indicative of not so good things, but it’s been kind of fun seeing all the different kinds grow.  Since my children hate mushrooms, I don’t have to worry in the least about one of them thinking a mushroom in the yard could be edible.

By the way, if anyone is thinking ahead for Christmas gifts, I would love one of those at-home mushroom farms.  It would be really fun to grow my own shiitakes or creminis.

And finally, I have a picture of one of the things that lame book inspired me to do.  I realized that I had plenty of containers yet, a very large bag of potting mix, and an endless supply of seeds.  So I went to work.  In one pot,  I put some lettuce seeds- I think I put them in so that they will grow to be attractive- artfully displayed as they grow.  In the second pot, I decided to put some cucumber seeds, surrounded by some chard seeds.  Again, thinking that this will be visually appealing, whether or not I get any produce out of it. (But I am hopeful for some late cukes here.)  This is what I ended up with:

To the right of this, I also took an unopened package of Earliserve green beans and planted the entire thing right in the ground- using square foot spacing.  Once they start to sprout I will have to determine how best to repel critters, but it just came to me that I still have plenty of dirt to work in, I might as well try planting stuff in it.

I also took three more pots just sitting around and planted a medley of kale and chard in them.  I used up the last of my potting mix in those, or I would have just kept going, filling pots and planting something in them.  What I’m really thinking is that if I do things correctly- especially with things like kale, chard and lettuce- that once the cold weather strikes, I can move these pots into our screen porch and try and extend their season by quite a bit.  I’m hopeful anyway.

Of course, all these pictures were taken before our big storm Wednesday night.  Thursday I had to spend time in my tomato patch, misting the plants and washing all the mud and dirt off them- as well as standing up quite a few that blew over.  I lost my black cherry tomato, which I’m bummed about, but I’m glad the other 33 plants are still intact and thriving.  The kids gardens aren’t looking so hot- they are just incredibly wind-blown, but I’m hoping for their sake, they’ll bounce back.  Slowly, everything else seems to be bouncing back from the stormy weather.  Although here it is three days later, and the ground is still soggy from the storm.  It can not rain for a while.

There will be more pictures to come.  Every day I find something new, and even though this will not be my most prolific year of produce, I’m still enjoying the process.  We’re learning what we need to do to maximize the space in our yard, and I’m really enjoying trying to garden potager style- and making it visually appealing as well as productive.

After going away for the weekend, I was totally delighted to come home and find some great changes to the gardens.  Namely, I actually find some marked growth on much of my plants.

The pea plant has quite a few peas- unfortunately, it’s also gotten hot and muggy which is the kiss of death for peas.  We’ll enjoy what we can get, I guess.

My butternut squash seems to have exploded!

And right below that, the pole beans are taking off.  Sprinkling them with a soap spray and then cayenne pepper did the trick.  Now I have to figure out what to do with them- they’ve reached the top of the 3-foot canes, where the pot is, and now I’m unsure what to do with them.

I was especially excited to find a blossom on my Scarlet Runner Beans.  I don’t expect much from these this year because the critters have had a field day.  But in the last few weeks, they’ve started to take off- and boy, if they would do what I want to do, we’d have beautiful blossoms followed by delicious beans

The tomatillo that I bought from the garden center has several blossoms.  This concerns me, because the one I started does not have blossoms yet- and I think they both need to be blossoming in order to achieve pollination.  But I can hope.  Next year I already know to start these plants much earlier than I did.

The strawberries are doing fantastic! I have several runners already as well as blossoms and baby fruit.

Abigail’s pie pumpkins are thriving!  We’re going to need to figure out where to send the vines in the next little while here.  All the melons the kids planted are doing well too.

Here’s Zander’s bean patch- four varieties of beans, and they are all doing really well.  Again, that soap spray and cayenne pepper has really made a difference in keeping the plants whole.

I found two of my sweet pepper plants look like they had been sat on or something while we were gone.  A little strange- but I propped them back up and we’ll see how they do.  Most of the sweet and hot pepper plants have the beginning of blossoms on them.  The one hot pepper I bought at the garden center is fruiting already.

And then there’s the tomatoes.  Before we left for the weekend, one tomato plant had generous blossoms- I was very excited about this because I have one variety of tomato I wish to save seed from- my German Red Strawberry, and that was the first to push out blossoms.  With no other blossoms nearby, if they can set fruit shortly, I won’t have to bag any blossoms or worry about cross-pollination.  Make saving the seed very easy if I just remember to save one of the very first tomatoes.

Two other tomatoes are showing blossoms now too.  The Cosmonaut Volkov and Brave General are bearing open blossoms- and it looks like more plants are on the way.  I was a little disappointed that my tomato harvest may be late this year, but I’ve decided it’s actually a great thing, because I won’t have to worry about everything ripening while we’re on our annual camping vacation.

I went out this afternoon and sprinkled the tomato and pepper patch with a general 30-30-30 granular fertilizer.  I just sprinkled it around the plants, and later when it rains the rain will carry the fertilizer to the roots.

I will say that I am impressed with the tomato plants themselves.  They were so scrawny and spindly when I planted them, but now they all have nice and sturdy strong stems.  The winds and breezes we’ve had have really toughened up the plants.  I’m grateful for this- it gives me time to think on my plan for trellising the plants.