Back Again! Summer 2010

This summer the vegetables on my back deck are flourishing - the hot weather and sunshine has made it easy to take care of the plants and they are growing better than ever. I planted less variety and concentrated on my successes from last year. Lots of tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumbers. I have done very little maintenance on the plants except watering, of course. (I never even fertilized...) Now, we're eating salads every night and having regular batches of basil pesto.

My herbs - Basil, Thai Basil, Rosemary, Marjoram, and Nasturtium.

Waiting on the Big Boy to ripen - can't wait to try them!

I'm growing the heirloom San Marzano to try something fun. Look at the unique shape! Will these be as good as the ones grown in Italy? Is my Miracle Grow Container Mix equal to the volcanic soil at the foot of Mt. Vesuvius? One authentic Pizza Napoletana coming up. (Hopefully.)

Here is the surprise and mystery of the summer - the plant tag said I would be harvesting long red chili peppers, and instead these strange bulbous green things appeared. What to do?

There have been a couple disappointments - zucchini that flowers, but never makes a fruit and just flops around half-dead on the deck.

Another problem - one of my sungolds is actively dying from an unknown disease. Luckily I have another very healthy plant.

Lettuce! Love this container variety (Garden Babies Butterhead) - thanks Mom! It started out a little slower than the others, but soon caught up. It grows into a nice lettuce shape and looks very appealing in the container.

This Simpson Elite is a really nice looseleaf lettuce that tastes great on my (B)LTs.

And here we have the Burpee Bibb that grew very well, but just doesn't have the charisma of the Butterhead Babies!

Here is our new patio set shaded by the white pine.

A complete list of what I have growing:

2 Sungold

1 San Marzano

1 Big Boy

1 Celebrity

2 Serrano Peppers

2 Bulbous unknown peppers

4 Boston Pickling Cucumber

Basil

Thai Basil

Marjaram

Nasturtium

Zucchini

Cilantro (failure)

Garden Babies Butterhead Lettuce

Simpson Elite Lettuce

Burpee Bibb Lettuce

Lantana

Marigolds

Date of planting - late! About the third week of June. However, the plants seemed to catch up to last year without a problem.

Weather - nice! Hot and sunny.

Watering - consistently watering when needed - about every other day and sometimes every day.

Fertilizer - osmocote when planted.

No insecticides or fungicides sprayed.