Early August Garden Update

So far, it's been a great summer in the garden besides the suspected late blight in some of the tomatoes. However, some good did come of their removal; they were shading the sweet peppers. Now those peppers are getting more sun and seem to be setting more fruit.

The photo to the right is my harvest from yesterday and includes some kung pao peppers, lots of Sungold tomatoes, a purple bell pepper, 3 Wonder Light tomatoes and a Cherokee Purple tomato. More hot peppers were on the plants, but I'm hoping some will turn red. Mind you, I've only planted half of the garden this year, so I'm hoping next year the semi-weekly harvests will be more bountiful!

The Sungolds have continued to be the star of the garden. Not only are they a lovely shade of orange but every 2-3 days we pick about a pint of them between our two plants! I am definitely going to plant those again next year. So far, I am less impressed with the Wonder Light tomatoes. They are a lovely shade of yellow and are shaped like a lemon, but kinda "blah" in flavor.

The herb garden is doing quite well. I'm not sure what to do with all of it, honestly! My (bought) Hidcote lavender is blooming again which is lovely. Also exciting? The lavender I grew from seed is blooming! Hurray! However, I've since learned that lavender doesn't really grow true from seed. So, what I grew from seed probably isn't "perfect" but it's still exciting to me.

The dahlias are still a welcome burst of color. The husband has recently admitted that besides the Sungolds which he eats directly from the plant as he does any sort of yardwork, the dahlias are his favorite thing in the garden. I suspect it is because they are very photogenic and attract lots of bees, and my husband likes the macro photography.

Thus, the garden is really moving right along without much work from me aside from watering.

Next year I think I'm going to weight each harvest. Over at Compost Confidencial, the blog of Joe Lamp'l who wrote The Green Gardening Guide (which is full of good ideas for organic gardening on the cheap), posts have a running tally of both the garden costs as well as the pounds of vegetables it has produced. His goal is 100 lbs by the end of the season all for...wait for it...$25. So far he's up to $15 for 78 lbs! Now, I'm not certain that I could only spend $25 in my garden next year, or produce 100 lbs for that matter, but it's nice to have goals.

I think I'll set some for next year!