The Tomatoes are looking great.  They're outgrown the first half of the cages, so I put the top halves on.  The Better Boy already has those first few tomatoes at the bottom, only just starting to get flowers on the Cherry Tomato.  That one is also getting some little bite holes in it.

The beans are growing up the trellis pretty nicely.  They're 60 days to maturity, so I'm not going to see any beans until mid July.  I think I should fertilize them now, so they put on more growth before then.

The Basil plants seem to be doing really well.  I do wish I'd grown more, that I'd started them earlier, etc.  Same with the other herbs, of course.  I wish the Rosemary was growing better, but it's always a slow grower.

The Jalapeno is also a little slow, but I guess that's normal too.  Maybe he needs some fertilizer as well.

I've got that big empty space in the raised bed, and I would like to put the Swiss Chard in there, but I'm not sure it's ready yet.  I just transplanted the six of them to larger containers.  I guess I could have put them right into the raised bed, and avoided two transplanting processes.  But I just don't think they're ready... I am going to leave these larger containers outside when possible so they get some real sun.  I did the same thing with the 3 Basil starts.

So I had 3 open six-packs, and I filled 2 of them with more Basil, and one with the green Zinnias.  I'm not sure there is any point to starting seeds right now, because it will be a month before they're good enough to transplant.  But I think the green Zinnias might be fun.

I'm looking at all the Zinnias on Burpee's site, and I'm thinking I should be growing a lot more.  Since they are so cheap (25 cents per seed), it would be a great way to fill a large space.  There are plenty that are shorter- they claim 18 inches.  If I get enough of them, I could pretty much fill the sidewalk bed.  Optimistically, let's say I get 20 plants out of a seed pack.  20 Zinnia plants would fill out that space very nicely.  And the reviews say they are very drought tolerant.

I also think I should put in more Zinnias in the side bed, but some shorter ones to fill out the space in the front. So I might be buying 3 packs of Zinnias next year- a red and yellow mix for the sidewalk bed, a short pink type for the side bed and some kind of big cutting flower like I've been doing.  I'll keep an eye out for an end-of-season sale, because I think there's no reason not to use last year's seeds.

So I will try to start a TON of Zinnias in March, because I want them pretty big before transplanting.  It will be kind of challenging to have enough space for them.  I'm starting to think I need another grow light... I will probably want all 10 six packs to be Zinnias when it's that time.  I should have transplanted the early spring veggies by then, into larger containers if not outside.  I should be able to plant the Zinnias outside in late April.  If I had done this better, I would have flowering Zinnias everywhere by now.

Same with Sunflowers.  I wish I had started a ton of them.  I'll definitely do the Elf ones again, for the third year.  There are 35 seeds in a pack, and I'll start them in the water bottles.  And I think I'll put one seed in each, so if some of them don't germinate within a week, I'll just add another seed.  I don't feel like I need to waste them by planting 2 or 3 in each container and thinning later.  I think I've got like, 20 of them in the window box, so I would happily start the whole packet.

There is that area in front of the dumpsters that used to have a ton of Irises and someone, for some reason, wiped them all out.  I can't even. But if I go in there and plant a ton of sunflowers, I think they would grow beautifully.  I think the area is like, 10 feet wide and 2 feet deep.  I would like to do a row of 6 foot Sunflowers in the back and a row of 3 foot ones in front, and I think I would want 20 plants total.  And I would also want to put lots of sunflowers in the sidewalk bed, along with these shorter red and yellow zinnias.  See, I think there's no reason I can't totally fill that area with these seed started annuals.  The more I fill out that area, the less weeds there will be.  And it will attract butterflies, and those are great cutting flowers.

In that sidewalk bed, I would like to dig up and divide the Liriope, which I should do when it starts to grow next spring.  I'd like to do the same thing I did in the front bed, and break it into 6 inch plants and spread them near the edges of that area.  That would be the same time the Daffodils are up, but probably after they're done blooming.  Then shortly after that I would plant Zinnias and Sunflowers.

I'm looking at White Flower Farm and I'm very tempted to buy a fuck ton of Daffodils and just cram that space full.