A Garden Update

What a different 19 days, high humidity and a few rain showers make! My last State of the Garden address was nearly three weeks ago, and within those three weeks boy have things been busy!


My friends, check out this crop.

If you look to the very right, you'll see the cucumber plant is literally spilling out of the garden itself.


To refresh you memory, 19 days ago this is what it looked like:

Quite a change!


First of all, Herb Corner is getting just a bit out of control.

My one basil plant has turned into two, and my cilantro is spreading like wildfire. I gave a bunch to a coworker, made salsa with the cilantro and pesto with some basil over the weekend, but hardly put a dent in anything. Does anyone want some fresh herbs? I'd be more than happy to share!

And my "mystery plant?" Well, although it's completely taken over the entire garden, I still have no clue what it is. Granted, I haven't crouched down to look extra closely in the past few days, but still: I'm stumped. 

And even though the mystery plant is all but blanketing my strawberries, sure enough, they're forming! About a week ago, I had a few more of these cropping up, but came home one night only to find that a hungry little creature had bitten every single one off at the stem! Hopefully they've lost their taste for unripened strawberries and will leave these little babies alone.

Also taking up space are my cucumber plants. As I mentioned before, they are spilling out of the enclosure!

So what's going on underneath all those leaves?

Baby cucumbers are starting to....

...GROW! 

I was so excited when I noticed this bad boy lying there in all its cucumbery glory this morning. Although it's currently in its awkward teenage phase, I've got a feeling pretty soon I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in ultra-mature cukes.

Fighting for space near the cucumbers plants are my bush beans. Rollll that beautiful bean footage (I'm sorry.):

Don't they look gorgeous? I'm guessing they'll be ready for picking very shortly. They sprouted and grew in no time!


And as for my sad little jalapeno plant, which I never thought would produce after being ravaged by gluttonous bunnies weeks ago, well, just look:

No... look closer:

The little nuggets of spicy joy have overcome the obstacles and are growing to full size! I'm so proud of their grit and determination. They're real troopers, those jalapenos.

And finally, the real superstars of the garden all along have been the banana peppers.

In three weeks they've gone from little pepperlings to full-blown pepper BEASTS. I'n fact, I've already harvested about five of them.

They're big and sweet and great in salads and salsa. I have noticed that the bottoms on a few have gotten brown and kind of rotten. Does that mean I should have picked them earlier, or is this normal? I'd like to can and pickle a few, so that's my next DIY endeavor to tackle.

Frankly, I'm surprised how well everything has gone in the garden. I started everything as a complete novice, blindly planting and hoping I was caring enough for my little crops-to-be. I'm still a novice, but am so pleased with how things have progressed! 

Now, one last update, which happens to be outside of the garden on the main level of our backyard: The grape vines!

Sadly, the pretty red roses are gone, but look what's sprouted in their absence!

Grapelets!

Green, glorious baby grapes! They've still got some time to grow before they can be picked, but they're starting to get big! There's always a pack of birds perched atop the vines, so I'm thrilled they haven't been stingy enough to eat them all. If they all stay in tact, we'd have enough to make some wine, for sure.... though I don't know if I'm up to the challenge (or, actually, the being patient enough for fermentation...). 

Thank goodness for the weather we've gotten in July. Sure, it was ridiculously hot there for a while, but all the moisture in the air and a few nice rain showers really moved things along outside. I can't wait to see what the next couple weeks will hold - I may be doing a lot of harvesting!

Do you have a green thumb? Can you give me any pointers? Am I doing everything absolutely, appallingly wrong? Let me know in the comments!