A comment on one of my garden posts last year, made me realize that I haven't mentioned the garden much this year. Part of the problem was our cold spring stunted the growth on my early plantings and they are just now coming to harvest. Later plantings are doing much better.
Again the peppers seem to be taking over the patio room. They seem to like the heat and relatively little water that they receive. I am currently harvesting Anaheim's, Italian longs, Hungarian yellows, and red and yellow bells. The jalepenos and serranos are just about ready. Last winter I lost one of my three-year-old serranos, but the other is doing well.
The basil is doing fine and going to seed faster that I can harvest it.
The tomatoes, as I am learning, want more water. I have some wonderful cherry pit sized cherry tomatoes. Also some small romanos and small beef steaks. I really need to figure out a better watering scheme.
And then there are the volunteers, some of whom are doing quite well. Since my potting soil is nearly 100% compost from the last couple of years, I get a wonderful variety of plants popping up unexpectedly. Several of my old pepper plant pots are now sporting tomatoes. I also have peppers in my tomato pots. I have a tomato coming up in my sweet pea plot and a cantaloupe in my poinsettia.
While I had some early pest problems, a few lady bug bombs, a couple of mantis hatches and bacteria spray for loopers have taken care of them. The room continues to team with bugs, but they don't seem to be doing the plants much harm. Last week, I was excited to discover a mass of mantis eggs on one of the rafters.
So that's the state of this years garden.
5:15:47 PM 
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