Well, the good news is the Tomato in the container on the patio is blowing up. It's a monster. The bad news is that this is now clearly showing itself to be a Sun Gold Cherry Tomato. So I mixed up the plants, perhaps even earlier in the process than I thought, and I've got a Sun Gold on the patio and a Sun Gold in the raised bed. And I do not have a nice Fresh Salsa determinate tomato at all. The Sun Gold on the patio in the container is probably bigger than the one in the raised bed. That's probably because it gets sun forever, could be because the soil was mostly new, or because I planted it a week or two before the ones in the raised bed. So I'm going to end up eating a lot of cherry tomatoes. Good thing I love those little fuckers.
The raised bed tomatoes look good, of course. The intentional Sun Gold is growing just fine, I ate one off of it a week ago, and I've been trying to force it into the cage. I did end up breaking off a few stalks in that process. The Brandy Boy is also growing really nicely, it's a much more upright, thick stalked plant, it actually looks kind of nice. I guess it has been in the ground for 5 weeks (35 days) and it's rated at 75 days to maturity. So I should be patient, I know it is going to be slow and that was part of my planning when I picked varieties. Although the Sun Gold is supposed to be 65 days to maturity and I've gotten one already. (One cherry tomato! Woo!) So I think it's safe to say I got a little head start by starting these tomatoes in January and planting them into larger pots.
The Green Beans are starting to grow and twine around the trellis. I did not plant a ton of seeds, and I was kind of lazy, and I didn't even plant any of the purple ones. I love growing the purple ones but they look kinda sad after they are cooked.
The Romaine lettuce I had in the raised bed was growing like, 3 feet tall, so I cut all those down to the stalk. I feel like I heard they were going to grow back from the stumps but I don't know if that is true.
Herbs all look great. I've been trying to remember to water them, especially the ones that are under the roof on the plant stand. The Rosemary in the larger pot looks great. And in the raised bed I have an old Rosemary from last year, and a Parsley and Sage that I bought, and the Sage is growing but the Parsley is really slow. The Chives came back but they look pretty sparse, I don't know about it.
I also have two pepper plants- one is a Habenero and one is some other weird thing, called a salsa pepper or something, and we ate one last weekend and it is just not hot enough to be much use. But those plants look great as well.
Ornamentals:
The shady stuff in the patio bed looks pretty good. The coleus are growing well and I just went and pinched back the flowers. The begonias look good but they haven't grown as big as I would like. In the Woolly Pockets, I've got the Sweet Potato Vine, which is growing but something is taking little bites out of the leaves. I think it's ok, I think they will take off and outgrow it. I am thinking of digging up some Creeping Jenny and planting it in there as well to give it some variety and some nice trailing stuff.
In the wall planter, I've got two Calibrachoa, the striped ones, and they don't look so great. I have watered that thing about once a week but I think I should be doing it more often. Obviously that tall spiky thing looks fine. I put a small Creeping Jenny cluster in there, and I think it's still alive but I might add some more.
In the window box I have three Calibrachoa, and they look great. I have one of the Elf Sunflower, because the other seeds I planted didn't really get going. I should probably throw some more seeds in there so it fills out with some nice stand-up plants to go with those bushy pink flowers.
The Roses are growing well and flowering a lot, although they are growing a few very tall stalks and not the dense, bushy shapes I would like. I think I will prune off the really tall stalks with the hope that they will instead grow flowers at the lower branches. It's also just looking really stupid in there- There's like a ton of stuff right in the middle, and a big empty space in the back. I am thinking of digging up the fern and moving it to the space in the back. I'm not sure if I can dig it up easily, since it is right in there with the roses, but if I can it will look a lot more balanced.
