Gardening June 2011

Here’s the garden in full bloom! I’ve tried some new plants along with the winners from last year. Well, we didn’t have anything winning till I discovered the Dipel dust. 90% of my tomato plants were destroyed by nasty hornworms. In August, I used the dust on the last remaining grape tomato plant. For the next few months we had an abundance of tomatoes. It was awesome. So, every few weeks or so, I sprinkle the dust on the plants. So far, no damage done by worms, woo!

Here below are three bell pepper plants in the cage. They shade each other better from the intense heat by being three plants in one hole. On the left is Nasturium, a plant that’s supposed to ward off bad bugs, and is a great bushy plant for boxes. The purple is the Verbena, a hit from last year. Verbena does awesome in the desert heat.

This type of purple verbena blows my mind. That’s one plant! It is a super mulch plant, covering almost the entire box. I love how it hangs over the box. That image takes me back to sunny streets of Santa Barbara, with lots of potted plants resembling this

The cherry tomatoes, ahh! Two plants alone have taken over the entire big bed. It’s like an easter egg hunt digging for the harvest. Such fun!

There are about 5 large tomato plants in there, consisting of Heatwave and Hawaiin Tropic. So far, the Heatwave have impressed me. Big clusters of large tomatoes are coming. Sweet! Next year, a small bed will be built just for the cherries, and this big bed will have only big tomato plants, as they don’t crawl as much as the cherries.

Trying to grow some green beans and cucumbers up the trellis.

I wish I knew why the grapevine is so stagnant. Still figuring that one out. The strawberries gave a great harvest earlier this year, and went dormant again.

In the herb bed, I threw in a  few watermelon and cucumber plants for fun, and because they wouldn’t be crowded  by the cherries. We’re going to have the watermelon grow up some chicken wire soon, on the wall.

Green onions!

Parsley, and chives in the front, yum!

These are my happy flowers, Cosmos. Going to school in Rexburg, ID, I saw them in abundance in people’s yards. They bring good memories of those chapters to me. I think its important to not forget the good times in your life.

We also have this random tomato plant that decided to grow in the desert soil. Crazy! So, I put an extra drip there and we’ll see how it does.

So, that’s it so far. I have a ton of cherry tomatoes that I will be roasting and pureeing for a tomato sauce. So heavenly. It’s so fun to garden here!!! All you need is good soil, raised beds, drip irrigation, and a knowledge of what plants grow here. Apparently, cherry tomatoes do great