August 3

Yeah... it has been a while. Sorry SMT! I meant to update last week (and the week before, and the week before) but things kept getting away from me and we went out of town and [insert plausible excuse here]

I took the pictures in the sunshine... should have waited for the shade to get lower contrast, but maybe next time it'll be cloudy.


I had to finally pull my lettuce. It grew like crazy, but I let it go too long and it just tasted bitter as all get out.
Nice to know I *can* grow lettuce though.
Here is the right half of my veggie garden. The tomato vines are growing like crazy and the one in the center and the one on the far right have fruit. The others are still just in the flower phase. My yellow squash is finally producing, though they are far smaller than I expected. (I guess they are the baby variety)
We had such a long winter this year that everything is running several weeks late. I remember last year at this time one of my vines was already toppling over and I was up to my ears in cherry tomatoes. Though I didn't actually plant any cherry tomato plants this year (couldn't find them) They mystery "yellow tomato" plant is producing some oddly shaped little guys.


The "Window Box Roma" on the far left truly is... the little squat plant is just not stretching very far at all, though it has more fruit than any of the others. (you can barely see it in the shadows... next time I'll shoot on an overcast day)


The herbs are turning out to be great fun. The borage (see the blue flowers from the last update) became overgrown and finished flowering, so he was removed. The dill... *sigh* I just don't have good luck with dill... it's so frail. My onions (if you look in the upper right corner of the bed you might see the greens) are laying out to dry for two days. I think next year I'll put green onions in where the dill is now... I actually eat those and have had good luck with them in the past.

Today I did a decent harvesting of the herbs. I now have a bunch of lemon verbana, melon sage and oregano drying in my laundry room.

I've decided I like herbs, but I need to pay better attention to harvesting times if I'm going to use them.

Cilantro I planted because Dan likes to cook with it sometimes... but only sometimes... so I let it go. Turns out it flowers *really fast*... and I tried to cut it back so it would grow bushier instead of sprouting flowers, but it doesn't really work that way (apparently) I now have long stalks with little "fruits" on them... which I will let dry and become coriander seeds.

My thyme seems to flower quickly too... but I've been on top of it and harvesting bits here and there... clipping the flowers to make it grow out more.

The lemon verbena is just crazy big. I'm not sure I'll ever cook with it (maybe I'll drop some leaves in my tea sometimes) but I'm drying a bunch and will possibly use it for some kind of potpourri.

the flat leaf parsley was bent over to the dirt and I didn't want it to rot, so I cut pretty far down last week & have a fresh bunch in the fridge. We actually cook with that fairly often, so I'm glad to be growing it so well.

I'm learning a lot this year with my first "real" herb garden. I kind of expected them to act somewhat the same, but the plants all have a mind of their own. Oregano and chives seem to be the easiest to deal with... I chopped one oregano plant to the ground last month, and to day packed the dry leaves in my spice jars (filled 3 spice jars with dried oregano leaves!) and today cut some more branches down. I'm trying to cut just some to keep each plant in tact so it doesn't look like a massacre happened in my herb garden. Maybe some day I'll find that balance between keeping it pretty and keeping it useful.