Oh man, I have found my new hobby.
When I first shared my garden at the end of March, I had a bunch of basil, various herbs and five tomato plants. I got a lot of encouragement and suggestions in the comments and was very grateful for all of them.
The first piece of advice was to move my mint into it's own pot because it will take over everything it's near. I did that right away. I also read this great article on herb gardening. I highly recommend it if you are like me and have had trouble keeping your herbs alive in the past. I learned so much about how to trim my herbs so they grow back quickly and stay healthy.
The second suggestion from my blog comments was to get my tomatoes into something deeper so they'd have room to grow. I waited on that one because I wanted to see how things were doing before I spent more money on pots & dirt.
Annnnnnnnd wow, did those tomatoes grow. And then some. It must be the climate because I don't really know what I am doing yet. (Our house is surrounded by strawberry fields and orange groves - so we're for sure in the right place).
It's inspiring and encouraging to watch my plants flourish - especially after I have killed so many indoor and windowsill herb gardens. I am out there every morning, inspecting and marveling. And in the evenings, I usually water and "harvest" from the mint, basil, cilantro and rosemary for our dinners or drinks.
This past weekend I headed back to our local nursery to stock up on a few indoor plants, more dirt and deep pots to separate the tomatoes. The past two days, I reorganized and re-potted - and just in time. The root systems on the tomatoes were CRAZY already. I shouldn't have waited so long. But they are in new homes now and hopefully will do well in their own larger pots. I have them supported against the patio wall which seems to keep them upright for now. Each plant has flowers already and I hope to see the start of tomatoes in a few months.
Moving the tomato plants meant I had more space to spread out the basil which is doing really well. Everyone asks why we have so many basil plants and the answer is simple - PESTO. It takes a ton of basil to make pesto (even the way we do it which includes asparagus). If I end up with too much basil, I'll just make extra pesto and freeze it (or give it to the neighbors).
And then the most exciting part of our patio garden, is our new semi-dwarf meyer lemon tree. Paul's family was here this past weekend and generously gave us a tree to add to the patio. The guy at the store said it would be good in a large wooden pot for at least five years and in just a few months it should be producing lemons.
It goes without saying, I am so excited.
