A Garden Tour

This morning I took a photographic tour of my tiny garden.  There are some exciting things happening out there and also some lessons learned.

Happy Cucumbers

My cucumbers are deliriously happy.  I planted a bunch of them because we ran out of Grandmother Atkinson's Lime Pickles this year and THAT CAN NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN.  Cucumbers and tomatoes are the main reason for my garden's existence.  And basil.  More on that later.

Roma Tomatoes with Parsley and Cucumbers in front

My Roma tomatoes are also blissfully growing alongside their parsley and cucumber cousins.  This year I am trying a new support system.  I put in bamboo stakes on either side and ran twine between the stakes.  When the tomatoes look droopy, I run more twine and tighten things up.  We'll see how this goes when the plants get really heavy with yumminess but so far I like this system.

Can you see all those blooms and baby romas?  

This is gonna be yummy!

The reason this makes me so happy is that I love Caprese Salad!  Have you had it before?  It's sliced tomatoes with basil and sliced mozzarella cheese (the wet kind) with Balsamic vinegar.  Grocery store tomotoes are hardly worth the effort but if you have a delicious garden grown tomato . . . Oh Honey!  You have deliciousness!  I planted a lot of basil but so far only one of the plants is really happy.

Happy Basil Plant

Last year we didn't get ONE tomato but our basil went crazy.  Hopefully, the other basils will come on quick.

We also planted strawberries

One of two plants and the lonely strawberry

and squash

Can you see the baby squash under there?

I don't think we'll have enough strawberries for jam, so that's one lesson learned.  Next year I'll plant about eight strawberry plants.

In the interest of keeping it real, here is the other side of my garden.

The sad, pitiful Better Boy tomatoes and the killer dill plant (with a few zinnias and thyme thrown in)

I put in these robust Better Boy tomatoes, looking forward to some yummy slices on sandwiches this summer.  Then I planted a tiny, little, grown from seed in my kitchen, dill plant in front of it.  The dill went crazy.  This is cut back to about half it's size in an effort to encourage my tomatoes to live and not die.  The tomatoes looked much worse before I did that, if you can imagine.

I couldn't figure out what was wrong with those plants except that "Better" Boy was apparently NOT better, so I called my master gardener Mom about my problem.

She said, "I don't know" and we continued garden talking.

I told her how much I love the fresh dill on my scrambled eggs and she said, "Oh!  I bet you will have some beautiful butterflies this summer.  They love dill too."

Mystery solved.  Butterfly babies killed my better boys.  Or at least bullied them.  Those butterflies had better be pretty!