I haven’t written in a while. Call it being busy, call it writer’s block, whatever. All I know is that the for the past few weeks I’ve had no desire to sit down and type once I got home from work. Plus, not much has been happening at the garden. I’m getting a little bored. I stop by every day, or every other day, water, check on the plants, see if anything is ready to pick. And really, there hasn’t been. Two cucumbers, three to four green beans. The tomatoes are coming in like crazy, but they’re still all green.
I am getting so impatient. I want tomatoes now. My mom, who lives down in South Carolina, has been telling me about her big, juicy tomatoes for a month. I’m still eating store-bought ones. Other gardeners are getting ripe tomatoes. But then again, their plants are much smaller and producing less fruit than mine. Each of the plants have set a lot of fruit, with the exception of the brandywine. Perhaps it’s slower to fruit than the other varieties I have planted? All I know is that once they start to ripen, I am going to be overwhelmed. I’ve also learned that one of the tomato plants I received on our first day of planting at the garden is not a beefsteak like the others, but rather a Roma plant. They’ll be great for canning.
The cucumber plants are so big now that I’ve had to start pinching off the tops. The plants also were given to us by the garden, but mine came with no tag, so I have no idea what variety they are. I do know, however, that the cukes are long and thin and that they taste fantastic on salads. Once more start coming in, I hope to pickle a bunch of them.
Otherwise, I’ve been picking lots of the herbs and tut-tutting over the rest of the plants. I’m regretting not having more diversity in my bed. I wish I had planted more peppers and beans, and some more exotic veg. I’ve started some seeds at home – squash, beans, lettuce, spinach, and some flowers – which I hope to transplant once the temps drop below 90. My hope is that these quick-maturing plants will have enough time to produce before it gets too cool for growing. I’m going to try planting the spinach and lettuce between the tomato plants where they’ll be shaded.
theharlemgardener 