Fruit of My Labor, Garden Update

 

Here I am two months invested in my garden and up to my elbows in little baby tomatoes.  I couldn't be happier!

My Cherry Tomatoes, they seem to be doing the best.

 Everyday after work, I check up on my plants see what needs watering, what needs weeding, see what is producing/ripening.  I'm amazed when I see little blossoms on my tomatoes, strawberries or on my blood orange tree.  It's like the blossoms are little specks of hope or happiness, they have so much potential to produce great things.

Everything is growing and beautiful, my tomatoes are turning red and producing tons of little green babies.  I'm so excited for them to ripen so I can eat fresh caprice salad from my yard.

Here is the first big beautiful red tomato, I'm going to pick it today and am so excited to eat my own produce.

 Lesson learned about buying tomatoes:  Since I was a beginner, I thought I will spend a little more money and buy a few big plants and a couple small tomato plants.  In my mind the big ones would be the ones that were going to produce a ton, so I put them in the best spot and with the biggest cages... two months later it is the little inexpensive plants that have took off and done the best. 


My tomato and basil garden, ripening for yummy Italian cooking.

I was at the nursery and one of the workers laughed when I told him this, he then told me "The big plants never do as well because they have a advanced root system in their pot, the little plants do great because they have room to spread their roots once they get in the ground."  With planting, bigger isn't always better, you don't need to spend a ton on big plants, just buy the small baby plants and they will  produce better in the long run. 

Rhubarb - I have two Rhubarb plants; an older one which was in the side yard before I moved in and a new one which I planted in April.  The older one has the yummiest stocks, the new one is finally getting bigger and I harvested a few stocks last night.  Hooray for Rhubarb the whole summer long!!!

My Baby Rubarb Plant flanked by my Baby Watermelon Plants.

Watermelon - I planted a bunch of seeds and waited, nothing came.  The thought of having fresh watermelon was so overpowering, I went out and bought a little watermelon plant.  A month later my little watermelon seeds started to come up.  Now I have a thriving Watermelon plant from my seedlings and little plants from my impatient buy.  Lets see what happens.
 


Watermelon from seeds planted.

 


Watermelon from plants bought


Strawberries - My Strawberries are finally recovering from the constant attacks from the birds.  I was so happy to see more little flowers blossoming.  I will have to make little cages to keep the birds away, wish me luck this time around!

Zucchini

Squash

Newest additions:  Lemon Grass, Cilantro and Pumpkin

In these last two months I've gained more than a few ripe tomatoes, I've learned to slow down and care for something.  We live in a world of instant gratification, (gardening is anything but instant gratification), plants grow slowly, that being said the rewards are worth it in the end.  I feel that I understand some of my favorite literature more now that I have had a garden.  "The Little Prince", the "Bible" and "The Book of Mormon" all have growing analogies that I didn't really ponder or fully understand till I had my own garden.  How important it is to pull the weeds out of our lives before they take over, how seeds are sown and how good seeds take root & bad seeds wither. 

This has been such a great opportunity and I truly feel that my life has become more beautiful because of it.