Harvest Peppers

The temperature at night is getting pretty low now so I have decided to harvest my bell peppers and anaheim peppers.  It really isn't getting hot during the day either.  I will post a picture later.

First Harvest

How cute are these?!

Red at last!

Ok so, the yellowish ones from the last post are turning red. (yay)

I have no idea when to harvest the Anaheim peppers.

I wonder if there are any great recipes for LOTS of cherry and grape tomatoes? Off the top of my head is this one:

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/chicken_tacos_with_charred_tomatoes.html

It calls for plum tomatoes but I've made it with grape tomatoes and it was FABULOUS!!!

Color!

My cherry tomatoes are getting some reddish-purple color to them!

And these ones are yellowish-orange! Yay!

Max thinks that these might be Anaheim peppers. Anyone agree?

Disease?

I don't know what's going on. My tomato plants have spots on many of the leaves. Then the leaves yellow, wither and die.

It is very sad.

I went out and cut off all the yellow leaves. I really hope this doesn't affect the fruit.

Also, my crazy pepper is getting huge!!! It is twice as long as it was in the last photo I posted.

Last thing, I'm pretty sure now that my runt tomato plant is NOT a cherry tomato plant. The fruit are bigger and a different color pattern than the other cherry tomatoes.

August 11 Update

So, I had to go out of town for 5 days. I was very excited to go check out my plants when I returned today.

The little runt tomato plant has three little fruits. I can see now that it is a cherry tomato plant.

I was so excited to see that my bell pepper plants are WAY bigger than they were since I left. I couldn't believe it!

As I was checking out the other pepper plants, I was shocked to find this:

Ha! I thought all 3 pepper plants were bell pepper! I wonder what kind of pepper it is and when do I harvest it? :D

Next Year's Plans

So, I am so thrilled with the results of this year's garden that I am tempted to expand.

I started reading Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. (http://www.amazon.com/All-New-Square-Foot-Gardening/dp/1591862027/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312466590&sr=1-1) It's getting me super excited for next year! According to the book, I should figure approximately 32 sq. ft. of growing space per adult. That's 64 sq. ft. for Max and me. I have a preliminary drawing of the raised bed design. I welcome your comments.

This design has approximately 114 sq. ft. of growing space. I know I don't need that much right now. It's kind of an eventual destination. So, maybe next year I will do one of the long boxes and add the 2 small ones the year after that and so forth.

O Bel Poivre!

Cherry tomatoes! My brother-in-law's wife helped me identify the tomato plants. So far, I have 2 plants that are producing fruit that are round and clustered like the ones in this picture. I don't know how long it takes for them to ripen.... We shall see.

Grape tomatoes! We are guessing that 2 of the other tomato plants are grape tomatoes based on their oblong shape and clustering nature. Pretty cool!!!

Last but not least, there is one little runt of a tomato plant. Today I see that it is beginning to fruit. No idea yet what variety it is. Only time will tell.

And for the moment you've all been waiting for....

PEPPERS!!!! If you look closely, you can the beginning of my very first pepper.

I am so pleased.

Fruit at last!

My tomatoes are fruiting! Granted, the fruit are about the size of olives, but hey! it's a start. :) I am pleased. 4 of the 5 tomato plants have some size of fruit growing. The runt plant does have a flower which is surprising. I had toyed with the idea of pulling the plant out last week. I guess I'll just leave it be and see what happens.

Something is digging into my lettuce pots and chewing on the leaves! I have had to add soil twice. I have moved them onto the front porch. I am guessing it is probably bunnies and maybe they won't try it on the porch. We shall see.

Emotional Lettuce

So, in the last post I mentioned that I re-potted the lettuce plants because they didn't need as much sun as the rest of the plants AND I also mentioned the weather was supposed to be pretty hot this week. So, I moved the newly potted plants to the corner of the driveway where it gets the shade from our tree and a little bit of sun in the afternoon.

Well, yesterday when Max came home he told me that my lettuce plants were all wilted. The leaves were laying flat on the soil. I took them inside to the air conditioning and gave them some cold water. After about an hour or so, they were mostly perked up. I kept them inside overnight and today I put them in the window sill.

I have no idea how much sun they should get or what temperature they grow best at. I didn't have high hopes for them in the beginning when I threw a couple little seeds in the ground but now that they are 4 inches tall, I kinda want to save them.

Any advice would be helpful!

Happy Update

Look how tall and pretty they are!!!

4 out of the 5 tomato plants have little yellow flowers on them. They seem to be doing really well. The guy I got the tomato plants from didn't know what kind they were so I'm excited for them to fruit so I can try to figure it out.

The peppers are also doing well. The leaves are huge! I found a small yellow flower in the center of one of the pepper plants. There really isn't much more to say about them.

Also, my two little lettuce seedlings are doing great! I moved them from the plot to a couple of pots. I didn't want them to have as much sun as the tomato and pepper plants; plus the weather this week is going to be super hot. I hope they will be okay despite the high temps.

We bought a hose and reel so I don't have to make 5 trips to the spigot with my small watering can. :)

Adding to the Family

I received three pepper plants the other day. Max helped me dig up some more sod. Haha, now he knows my pain! Now my garden is about 3x5 or so. We planted the pepper plants and placed some cages around the tomato plants. Also, I didn't notice this at the time but one of my tomato plants was actually 3 in a cluster. I separated them and now I have 5 tomato plants and 3 pepper plants.

Also, just for fun I threw some lettuce seeds in the dirt before the pepper plants came around and I have 2 little seedlings now! How cool?!

It's been raining so much lately, I haven't had to water them. I hope they are getting enough!

On a side note, the peonies have not bloomed again even though there are little buds. I guess it takes awhile? The little pink roses are adorable but I wish I had a big bush of deep red roses too. The orange lilies are hardy and a neighboring bush is getting ready to bloom. These near-blooming lilies look like they might be a different color. We'll see. I'm hoping all these bloom soon so that they can be admired at the Housewarming Party this weekend.

New Beginnings

Now that Max and I have moved into our first house, I am excited to begin a real garden. I have a decent sized area that gets tons of sun in my backyard behind the garage. Yesterday I got 3 tomato plants and I was really anxious to get them in the ground.

Yeah, that was a lot of work! I bought a spade/shovel thing and hacked my lawn away to yield a 3x4 foot square. Sod is not easy to tear up! (Also, I just wanted to say that I picked out the earthworms and put them back in the ground). I have no idea if that's large enough for the 3 tomatoes. I guess we'll see. I raked the plot and patted it down. Then I roughly divided the area into sixths. I thought I would put the tomatoes in a checkerboard pattern. Then I transplanted the 3 baby plants into the ground and watered them. That was the fun part.

I was sweating profusely and very very dirty... hehe :D I had used a ton of bug spray on myself because the mosquitoes are insane back there. Then I showered. Sigh.

Max's brother has a tiller. I may be expanding this garden to a 4x8 foot garden this weekend. Who knows!

Any suggestions of what to do with this leftover sod? Can I somehow compost it?