It is so amazing to see the garden developing day by day, week by week. It has been just a month and a week since we started working in it and already we have some sucesses and some failures.
We've had quite a bit of rain, so except for the very first week, we haven't had to worry about keeping it watered.
The biggest failure has been the corn. Not one little seed sprouted, but we will not give up. We will just wait for a better time. Another failure has been some of the sweet Italian basil. For some reason a couple of the plants just would not respond to any TLC, yet a couple of others are doing beautifully!
The bush beans and snap peas are growing by leaps and bounds. The bush beans already have blooms. The tomatoes are also doing well and blooming.
The mesclun and other greens have not done much, but they are still there, just about a couple of inches high. However, the carrots and beets which were planted almost two weeks later seem to be doing fine and are catching up to the greens in size..
Italian Sweet Basil
The speamint is amazing, it has taken over the clay container and we will be able to start tucking little pieces of it in other areas of the yard or start using it fast or else give some away, because it looks like it wants to take over... We love spearmint and I have started using some in iced tea and even crushing a sprig or two in a glass of ice cold water!
Spearmint
The long green Japanese eggplant and the Millionaire eggplant are doing well. We found out that this last one is long and purple, but at the moment we have just a little eggplant and some blooms. The long green has several blooms and one already fairly large eggplant, as you can see in the picture below. Unfortunately the third eggplant, the round green Japanese, was cut by our yard helper, Colin when he was trying to weedwack between the beds. We already decided that we would not weedwack (or is it weedwhack?) again in that area!
I love a salad made with mesclun, marinated and grilled eggplants with herbed goat cheese and I think that will be what I will be making with this particular eggplant when we harvest it.
Long Green Japanese Eggplant
The Mexican tarragon looks beautiful and full of blooms. It seems to have loved the change from where we had it before. The two types of parsley in the same area are also doing well and spreading.
Mexican Tarragon in full bloom
The little red Hawaiian chile peppers keep on producing without any end in sight. I will be harvesting some more this coming week to make chile pepper sauce and will also just freeze some for later use.
A couple of months ago I made a delicious hot pepper jelly using the little Hawaiian peppers and liliko'i (passion fruit) as the base. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos, but will next time.
Little red hot Hawaiian Chile Peppers
..........and that is how my garden is growing after the first month!
