It’s been nearly a month since I gave an update about the garden, and things are really growing around here. This is a slightly diagonal view of my vegetable garden which covers the south end of my backyard. The bushiest plants you see are tomatoes (no idea why some are so bushy and others aren’t!)
 

A few of my tomato plants are so big that I’m going to trim off the ends of the branches, leaving 2 or 3 bunches of tomatoes, but removing new flowers and even baby tomatoes farther down the branch. This is a good trick if you have tomatoes that don’t seem to be getting ripe. It’s a bit painful to cut off those potential tomatoes, but it sends more energy to the bigger tomatoes. (Not sure if this is scientifically verifiable, but it works for me!)

 

I also have herbs and even veggies growing in other spots in my yard. Not to brag or induce serious garden-envy from readers who live in an apartment or condo, but right now I have literally hundreds of tomatoes on my plants. Soon I’ll be making Slow Roasted Tomatoes like crazy.

 

I had several people picking from the garden when I was at the Blogher conference, and I still had this many veggies to pick when I got home. (Bad photo, I should have used the trick I learned from the Bea and Lara about using a piece of styrofoam from the front to reflect the light back on to the food. Styrofoam is on my shopping list, along with vellum to filter the window light!)

 

Here’s what’s great about having a house. By my back porch a patch of basil, actually about three times bigger than what is shown in this photo.

 

And I also have this patch of mint, surviving well in a spot where my lawn sprinklers don’t quite reach.
 
I’m happy to report that my tarragon is growing like crazy, great news since I’m loving it so much!

 

Finally the Brandywine Tomatoes are starting to look like they will ripen. I can’t wait to have a Brandywine Tomato Sandwich!

 

Hooray, I have eggplants! There is even another tiny one peeking out in the back if you look closely. This plant is the “Black Beauty,” a very common eggplant variety.

 

If you’ve never tasted cucumbers fresh from the garden, you’ve missed a wonderful treat. Pick them when they’re still pretty small, and just eat with salt!

 

Finally my curse of flowers-but-no-peppers seems to have ended. This year I have peppers galore in several colors!

 

I love this type of summer squash which is called Pattypan or Scallop squash. The black dot is a tiny little snail, a huge garden pest around here, but not too bad so far this year.

 

Nearly every plant has ripening tomatoes like this peeking out, and this is the time of year when I need to pick them nearly every day! (This is what my mother used to call “a good problem to have.”

 

The yellow squash is also getting lots of squash on it. I love to pick these when they’re really small and roast them. It’s definitely a lot of work, but I feel very blessed and lucky to have a great garden like this!

You can use Garden Updates to see all my updates from many years of gardening!

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