It's time for a GARDEN UPDATE!!!! (and you won't believe how it looks!!!!!)

To say I'm happy about how it's doing wouldn't come close to how I feel about my garden!  It's doing WONDERFUL!!!!!!  I've even had some neighbors comment on how well it's doing - one saying "I've never seen a garden take off like yours has!"  Not too bad for the first garden I've planted in Texas!!!!  I'm planning to share some of the harvest if it gets too much for me.  The kids will want some and since I'm still working a few days a week I can take some there, but I have a feeling I'll still have some that I need to get rid of.  Eventually I want to can tomatoes and possibly green beans for the winter.   My goal for the Roma tomatoes, onions, salsa peppers and cilantro was homemade SALSA, but I'm not sure that will work out.  If it does and I'm happy with it, I'll can some of that, too.  (Probably need to talk to Todd about building more shelves somewhere for more storage of canned food.)

On my morning visit to the garden (I make at least three a day, morning, noon and evening), I counted a total of 39 tomatoes growing!  So far we've harvested three - two from the Patio Tomato plant (which I thought was a cherry tomato plant but didn't read the label very good) and one from one of the Heatmaster plants.  They all tasted GREAT!  Nothing you buy at the store compare to fresh-out-of-the-garden tomatoes!  Right now I have two that are pretty big on the Heatmaster plant that I'm waiting to turn red.  That plant alone has 9 growing on it, all different sizes, so they will all mature at different times, meaning soon I'll have all the fresh tomatoes I want (and probably more than I want).

But I'm getting ahead of myself - first here's a picture of the entire garden enclosure:

I've gone out a couple times in the morning and there were deer just on the outside of the garden! I'd just DIE if they ever got in and ate everything!!!!   If you go to the back corner, you can smell the tomatoes on the plants - HEAVEN!!!!

This is the first Heatmaster plant to produce a tomato.  It's also got the two big ones that I'm waiting to turn red - should be soon!!!!!  It is also the plant that has 9 tomatoes growing on it.



Also Heatmaster plant - it has a few tomatoes on it but they still need to grow.


The last Heatmaster plant.


This is my Red Beefsteak Heirloom tomato plant!  So excited for these!  The storm yesterday blew it over (only had wind and very few sprinkles), so I'm hoping it wasn't hurt.


Zucchini!!!!  We had left over lattice from the stairs on back of the garage, so I'll just weave the vines of the zucchini and cucumbers in that.  Both of them have come a long way in the last couple of weeks.



This is the Patio Tomato plant - I think I counted 5 or 6 tomatoes  on it.  They get bigger than cherry tomatoes, but not as  big as the larger ones that we'll get off the beefsteak or heatmaster plants.  They'll be great for me when Todd's not home.  There are two that are fully grown (I think), just waiting for them to turn red.



The four Roma Tomato plants.


Roma #1


Roma #2


Roma #3


Roma #4 - the two small tomatoes just showed up in the last couple of days.


Cucumbers!!!!!


Green Pepper plant (one growing), cilantro - I haven't harvested much off of this lately, and Red Radishes - they are still all pretty small.


Salsa Pepper Plant - this kind of comes and goes, right now it's looking pretty good, but there for a while it was kinda yellow.


Giant Caesar Lettuce:  I've had lots of salad from the two kind of lettuce that has grown enough to harvest.  I have a great Red Raspberry Vinaigrette Salad Dressing that is really good on it.


Black Seeded Lettuce:


Last weekend (Memorial Day Weekend) Todd was home and we harvested a bunch of lettuce, but the Black Seeded Lettuce doesn't hold up very well, so I decided to get a couple other varieties to try.  Alyssa and Angel came over on Monday and helped me plant them, and I noticed last night they are already coming up!  I planted them in some empty spaces in the raised bed.




The best plants are the green beans!  I originally planted 9 seeds, but only a couple came up, so I replanted a few more and now they are taking over the far end of the raised bed.  We've already had a couple of servings of them - I usually steam them and they are GREAT!

The other side of the plants:  (I have some organic bug/anti fungal spray that I've been putting on the plants - safe for fruit and veggies, all I have to do is make sure I wash it good before we eat it.)


Red Onions that were planted from bulbs:


White Onions planted from seeds:


Green Onions planted from seeds - these aren't doing very well.  I'm kinda disappointed:  the two bright green things in the front is actually grass, so I pulled them up.


I planted two other containers of green onions from the same seed packet, but two weeks later - they seem to be doing better.  I just need to thin them out:


Mini Carrots - they are only supposed to get three inches long, so they should be OK in the container - we'll see!! lol  They probably also need to be thinned out.


My potato plants are doing pretty good - added the straw to hopefully keep them cooler during the summer.


I'm guessing the Red Onions, White Onions and Potatoes won't be ready for harvest until the fall, so we'll be able to eat on them all winter.  I still need to figure out the best place/way to store them so they keep all winter.  Maybe the garage will be OK, but since it's not attached to the house, it may get too cold during the winter (yes, we do get a freeze or two down here).

The new resident of our garden is Angel's Sweet Corn plant - it was getting too big for their apartment balcony, so I told Tab I'd take care of it for him.  He was actually crying when he had to leave it so I told him I'd text Tab a picture every few days so he can see how it's doing.


There are also three more containers of Red Onions (from bulbs), and they are looking good.  Those I want pretty large, so leaving them alone.

I forgot about some Miracle Grow Tomato/Garden food that I bought a while ago, so started using that last week, and I can sure tell the difference!!!!  All of the plants have really grown since I used it the first time.  I"m going to use it once a week for a few weeks, them possibly go back to twice a month.

In other news, my birthday was early in May.  I've been wanting an e-reader for a while, so decided that was a great reason to finally get one.  I ended up buying a Kindle Fire at Target and just LOVE it!!!!  I've downloaded a bunch of free books, and also purchased the "Fifty Shades " trilogy.  Already read all three books and they are great, but the other thing I really like about the Fire, is I can get on the internet with it, so Facebook and Pinterest can go with me anywhere in the house.  After the free 30 day Amazon Prime Trial, I decided I really liked it, so I'm going to keep it ($79 per year).  This will let me watch TV shows and I'll also be able to download movies and things for our trip to Hawaii in December.   The last few nights there hasn't been much on TV that interest me, so I've been watching Showtime's "The L Word" series that I get through my Prime membership.I started out with season 2 and finished that last night.  It's nice to be able to watch that while I'm in bed.  We've switched our home phone to Suddenlink, and have Video On Demand in the living room, so there's never a time that I can't find SOMETHING to watch on TV (either in the living room or on my Kindle).  If you've ever thought about getting an e-reader, I can't say anything bad about the Kindle Fire!!!!

Well, I'm not working today and have a list of things that need to get done.  Todd's probably not going to make it home this weekend, so I'll finally be able to get a few things done that I've been putting off.  I'll also be doing another blog post for my craft/sewing blog sometime this weekend, so make sure to check it out!