It’s time for another garden update! Let me start out by showing a few older pictures. Here’s the bulk of our container garden right after we transplanted everything two months ago:
Container garden right after transplanting
Here’s that same setup one month ago:
Container garden after one month
And here’s what it looks like now:
Container garden after two months
We’ve moved most things out of this arrangement recently, to maximize sun exposure, but I moved it back temporarily to give a better comparison with the first two pictures. Even with the rearranging, I had trouble fitting everything into the picture (I couldn’t back up enough on our small balcony!) but you get the general idea. Wow have our plants really taken off over the last month!
I think all of our plants are finally doing well. If you remember from my last update, some of our basil plants were getting huge while others were still looking sad and puny. Since then, nearly all of the basil has started growing well. The slower plants are, of course, still smaller, but they’re finally growing in earnest.
Bucket basil
The “bucket basil,” as I like to think of it, is still the largest. Who would’ve thought that an old mayonnaise bucket would be great for growing basil? Not me. We only used it because we ended up with a few extra basil plants.
Speaking of experiments, to my great surprise the garden sock basil is still hanging on:
Garden sock basil
It’s even been growing in the last few days. It will be interesting to see what it does next.
Since most of our basil plants are doing so well we’re now practically swimming in basil. It’s so fun to be able to just go out on the balcony and pick some for a meal. At this point, though, using just small amounts isn’t keeping up with supply, so we’re planning on making some pesto soon. Just in time, too, as our frozen supply from last year is nearly out.
I hope that we’ll be able to enjoy some of our tomatoes with all that basil sometime soon. So far we’ve only eaten two cherry tomatoes, but both plants are getting huge and growing a lot of green tomatoes. Early Girl’s are getting bigger and bigger, while some of the cherry tomatoes are ripening:
Cherry tomatoes
The pepper plants have been growing flowers for a while now, but it was only a couple days ago that I discovered this:
Peppers
Apparently peppers like to hide down underneath the leaves. When you look at the plants from the top you can’t even tell these are there. I’m really curious to see how big the peppers will get, and at what point they start ripening. This is supposed to be a red pepper variety and I’d love to be able to wait for them to turn red before we pick them.
In addition to tomatoes, peppers and basil, we’re also growing a container of chard and some peppermint, both of which are doing well:
Chard and mint
I really need to cook some of that chard and try my hand at making some peppermint extract. I see now why it’s recommended to keep your mint in a container. I’m impressed by how quickly it’s growing!
I’m having such a fun time with our garden. It’s fascinating watching everything grow. Now I can’t wait to actually start eating some of it! Hopefully soon… 🙂
This post is part of Monday Mania and Fat Tuesday.Â
 How’s your garden doing?
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