Home Grown

Nothing is better than fresh vegetables. I love them and I wish that we lived closer to the Farmers Market so that I could get all of my veggies fresh. When Justin and Chris lived together they had a full garden and that was actually when I started liking tomatoes. You can not beat the taste of home grown fresh tomatoes. Grocery store tomatoes are just not the same. I have two different types of tomatoes and 4 different peppers that I have planted in pots this year. It has been quite an experience, all of my peppers almost died. I actually think that I almost killed them by spraying a concoction of garlic, pepper and soap that is supposed to kill beetles. The beetles had flown in and invaded my pepper plants - well the spray resulted in all of the leaves falling off. So, I went and bought new peppers(am I determined or what) to plant again and when I was re-potting I realized that the original plants were actually trying to grow back. So, I ended up with a few extra pepper plants.
I would like to have a green thumb - my mom certainly does - but I am in my early learning stages so lots of trial and error is involved. I would say my thumb is more gray than green right now. I also like instant results i.e. I want my flowering flowers to bloom right away and I wanted to see quick results with my veggies. I had a sad realization, but was thankful to my cherry tomatoes that they were quickest to produce. And they are absolutely delicious, we've had about 6 that have ripened and they really do make your mouth water for more they are so good. My big tomato plant was slower to produce, which Justin later explain that the plant had to grow strong enough to support the large size of the tomatoes - the lack of green thumb is again obvious. In my sheer excitement about my tomatoes and how many are on my plants, I realized that the bottom of some of the big tomatoes are black - I freaked out because I thought that a bug had gotten into them YUCK! But after doing a little research discovered that my soil has a calcium deficiency (BER). I've added lime to the soil and will also add egg shell and that should help. Since I pulled the bad ones off I haven't seen any more turn black. I was very very glad to discover my first sign of jalapeno peppers this week. Yippie! (The picture is sort of fuzzy - my camera is not willing to focus on the veggie but instead it focuses on the fence behind the plant - brilliant)

I hope that they will all continue to do good and produce. If they do really good, we'll be glad to share fresh veggies!