green thumbs...

As summer rolls around I often get the urge to start a vegetable garden. The apartment complex we live in is rather tolerant of their residents customizing their homes and patios - however I suspect they would draw the line at me jackhammering half of our concrete patio to make room for a my plants. Rather than ripping out concrete and trucking in good soil I opted for a small planter garden this year. One Roma tomato plant, and one Poblano pepper plant.

I had attempted a small vegetable garden two summers ago. It all started out well enough, we had a tomato plant and a pepper plant, and both were blossoming and starting to make fruit. It was at that point that I got distracted and started neglecting the poor plants. I didn't water them often, and when they grew tall and started to slouch over I neglected to stake them up. When I finally picked my first tomato off the vine I was quite disappointed to find that there was no sweetness, juice, or even seeds. Since I had water starved the plant so thoroughly the fruit never got much further than creating the fleshy portion. I watered the plants a bit more diligently after that and we ended up with a couple peppers and tomatoes, but nothing staggering. I would tend to my plants well for a week or so, and then forget them for 3. By the end of the vegetable season we had two brown crispy plants.

This year I was determined to do better. I got the plants, planted them a couple days after, and then started to water them regularly. My two plants have been looking quite happy, and as it turns out, if you water regularly they grow fast! Since the boys are away I took some time yesterday to sit outside with my plants, and to tend to my little vegetable garden. I staked both plants so they won't collapse under their own weight (as the last garden did). I checked for bugs, worms, and other critters that think of my garden as their own personal buffet (as the last garden had). And I fertilized the plants so they'll have plenty to eat, and watered so they will have plenty to drink.

And now - my garden.