'Maters

The container gardening didn't really work out for us last year, but we decided to give it another go this year since we actually have a yard that we can plant in. We have a couple of tomato plants that have really taken off in the past few weeks. It is such a novelty to me to have fresh vegetables growing right in my own backyard, especially since nothing really grows in that hard-packed San Diego soil.

Yummy cherry tomatoes (above) have made for delicious summer snacking. These ones (below) look like they're about ready to go. That's a snow pea in the foreground.



This plant (a.k.a "The Beast") may very well take over our entire back yard soon:

Patio Gardening Update

Well, we had planned once again on making a trip up to Maquoketa Caves today. As of the 10:00 news last night they said we only had a slight chance of rain in the late evening hours today. By this morning, they had changed their forecast to thunderstorms & rain all day. Hopefully someday soon our crazy weather people will make up their minds...but in the mean time we'll just have to make other plans. So, we decided that a rainy day would be the perfect day to go bowling. Well, as it turns out, Monday is the only day of the week that our bowling alley doesn't open until 4 pm. Plans thwarted again. On to plan C. We changed our plans once again and decided to have a nice lunch at Fuddrucker's and then tend to our patio garden...isn't that what everybody does on a rainy day? :-) So rather than pictures of a trip to Maquoketa Caves I have for you instead a photographic update of our patio garden.

Our tomatoes have come a long way since our last garden update. They have now graduated to their hanging baskets:


We have a virtual forest of cilantro:


The basil has been a little slow-going, but it will catch up:


We also planted some pansies, petunias, and impatiens. These are the pansies:

Ah, New Life

Brett and I have decided to try our hand at ‘patio gardening’ this year. We are planning on growing tomatoes, strawberries, and a variety of herbs that we use on a regular basis.

I am amazed at how quickly the tomatoes are growing. They doubled their height in just one day! Here they are at one week after planting: