Tomato Thursday or The Garden Update

Our weather has been about as weird as you can get.  Last week in the 90’s.  This week the 70’s, with night temperatures getting into the 40’s.  Had about 1.5 inches of rain yesterday.  But the garden seems to be loving it.

  Here are my two raised beds and the tomatoes are about 18 inches to 2 feet tall already.  Covered in blooms and seem to be doing rather well.  Note the white trash bag.  That has grounds from Starbucks in it.  However, I found out that the earthworms love to come up under it.  So I go out and pluck worms from outside the garden and dump them inside the raised beds.  Big, fat wiggly worms!  Yummy!  So I will pick up a fresh bag from Starbucks in a day or two and dump the old bag on my compost heap and put the new on as my ‘worm catcher’.

This is a cluster of Cherokee Purple blooms.  It is almost like a cherry tomato plant with all the blooms in one grouping.

A cluster of my Sunsugar babies.   This is my border with flowers and mints and peppers….the hot ones.  The bell peppers in the pots around the raised beds are starting to put on flowers and babies peppers.

And this is the grouping of ‘test’ tomatoes I am growing this year.  After the failure last year I had with them in the ground (don’t have good soil), I am growing them in bins…..

They were, for the most part, only 3 inches tall on Tuesday when I planted them.  But apparently they love the bins and the rain and the sun, as several are now peeking over the edge of their new home.  They are all suppose to be ‘dwarf’ and grown in containers.  I figure I am the ‘tomato test dummy’.  If I can grow them successfully, then anyone can.

But several basils around the yard in pots.  And some cucumbers, of which I have a couple of Dasher cucumbers with little ones on the vine.  This is my “Circle of Cucumbers”….

There is a Hyacinth Bean vine at the back of the circle and morning glories in the center.  My goal is a lovely tepee of vines.  We will see if dream matches reality this summer.

I stopped by Farmer’s Market on the way home from work today and picked up some local peaches.  I can’t believe they are here so early.  And the blueberries are coming in.  So when Savvy comes in a couple of weeks, she will be ‘fruited’ to death.  Texter is here and is anticipating a fresh peach cobbler tonight with dinner.