Veggies

My raised bed is looking very happy, overall.  The tomato is growing like crazy.  A week ago, I tied some of the branches onto the trellis to keep it upright and growing in the right direction, and I think that looks very nice.  The jalapeno plant was kind of lagging behind, but it has gotten bigger.  The green beans are shooting up super fast, as well, and I feel like I should have given them more room... I did thin them out quite a bit after they were all established, especially because some of them lost all their leaves from the hail.  But the smaller trellises I used are already too short.  I mean, they would grow 30 feet high if you let them, so I guess anything is going to be too short.

Actually!  Fuck it, they don't even need to be there.  If I get the right sized containers, I should just grow them all over the patio walls. I put some of the purple beans in the containers with the morning glory, figuring it would help fill it out, and it would be a stronger climber to carry the flowering plants along, but I wasn't really thinking it would take off like it did.  I have at least 3 feet of height there.  If I'm a little more vigilant about weaving them back and forth through the wall, I could cover a lot of space.  And I would cover that whole wall, the short one, with the planters inside the patio where I can keep an eye on them, but ideally the plants would grow to cover both sides.  And it gives me a lot more space to grow other things in the raised bed.  Like more tomatoes maybe.  Square Foot Gardening says 9 bean plants per square foot, so each plant needs 4x4 inches.  So in a long planter, like the one the morning glories are in now, you could have like, 15-20 plants.  And you'd be able to control the soil and you could start it a little early...

Anyway, the raised bed.  The tomato looks amazing, the jalapeno's good, the Swiss chard looks like it's getting on fine.  I think if I grow that again, I need to grow a lot of it for it to be worthwhile.  Because you get a couple of big leaves a week, not enough to make a meal for one person.  Well, I think that would be an easy one to start from seed, so, yeah let's do that.  The parsley is amazing.  It looks so good, I don't know why my parsley couldn't look like that last year.  The chives are good, I almost feel like I should use them as an ornamental grass somewhere else. I just planted more purple basil and Thai basil, so, we'll see, but the regular basil seems ok.  I may really regret wasting space on Thai basil.  I just want tons and tons of Genovese basil.  But the purple basil helps the whole thing look more attractive.  I don't think the thyme is doing so great.  I think it's getting kind of shadowed by the big leafy things.  So I guess I'll see if it makes it. Maybe it will be really nice in the fall.  The cilantro of course went to seed already.  I planted another one like 2 weeks ago and it's fine, but won't be for long.  I planted some seeds in there, hoping I'd get little cilantros that were picking up right when the big plants were quitting, like Mom did, but I was too late.  But I think I could start those from seed pretty well!  And there are a few nasturtiums, just plugging along.  No flowers yet, I think not until July.

I ordered a grow light.  So, when that gets here, I'm going to start some cilantro seeds, and I think some of the bok choy I bought.  I have a few late-season seeds to start, but those say to start in June-July.  Like, outside.  And then you have bok choy to eat in 2 months, which sounds kind of amazing.  But if I start them like, now, and they're ready to be transplanted within a month, where would I put them?  I guess I could just put them in containers.  I don't see how they could need that much space, if they grow in like 2 months.  It's not like they could create a huge root system.  I guess I could even start the first round right in the container?  Sure, why not.  I guess I need to be more thoughtful about what I use as a growing medium....  So excited about my grow light!