Hello, hello! It’s time for another kitchen garden update, and there are lots of things happening that I want to share!
The tomato plants are exploding. They are a few feet tall now with very sturdy stems. I’ve been tying them to posts to make sure that they don’t break in the crazy storms that seem to pop up out of nowhere this summer. It really does seem that we’ve moved into a different climate here on Long Island in the last few years. The summers are way hotter, mosquitoes are a plenty, and we get hot mid-afternoon storms that remind me of the ones my dad would tell me about from Florida years ago.
I planted two varieties of pepper plants, green bell and Italian long hot. So far we have lots of flowers on the bell peppers but no actual peppers. The long hots are starting to bloom, we have two just popping as you can see on the plant on the right. I can’t wait to make this recipe with them!
The herb bed has really been a surprise! I planted seedlings of rosemary, sage, dill, and parsley that I purchased at the store. But I also directly sowed seeds for parsley dill and basil that are getting huge already! You can see the basil leaves in the image on the right — I was not strategic when I planted because I didn’t expect them to even work! Next time I’ll be a little more thoughtful with my placement!
And another big surprise was the lettuce bed! I planted seeds for arugula, mixed lettuce and Bibb lettuce with little hope of them coming in before August. Meanwhile, we’ve already harvested arugula and have so much more coming in! So exciting!
I hope to have more to show you when we are back from our trip. I planted carrots, cucumbers, strignbeans and peas from seed and they are all popping up above the dirt now too! Things are blooming!
How is your garden coming along? I’d love to hear in the comments below!
