An update to the pepper saga

Update to the July, 8 2014 post Heartbreak in the garden: It seems the most likely cause was high winds that came through that day while I was at work. The broken plant that I put in the bucket of water did not survive, BUT...I had left the broken stump as it was in the pot and a few days later it started to sprout new leaves out of the side of the stump!



After about 5 weeks of growing, it is now nearly the size of the original plant. And look— tiny peppers are growing!

Heartbreak in the garden

I came home today to find this, an empty pot and an entire pepper plant broken completely off at soil level, wilted on the ground in the bushes next to the porch.

It was totally fine this morning; healthy with a thick stem and full of buds and little peppers. Did an undetected storm somehow rip through while I was at work? Did the chipmunks who have been destroying my beans and peas finally decide to gang up and go for something big?

I'm not sure it can be saved, but I'm not ready to give up. So I put it in a small trash bin filled with a couple inches of water for now. I've had success re-rooting broken pieces of tomato plants before, but not peppers. I had two small pepper plants broken by wind earlier in the season and haven't been able to re-root them. Time to do some more research. I hope there's a way to save it, or at least part of it.

Happy 4th of July! (A full porch, hanging baskets, and a tomato growth chart)

Happy Independence Day! I don't have fireworks, but I've got the stars and stripes waving on the porch.

The porch garden is pretty full, though I'm always thinking about adding more.

I did decide I needed to add some flowers this year and it seemed that *up* was the only way to go, so I added some new plant hangers to the porch columns.

The tomato plants really take off once the weather heats up, so I started a tomato "growth chart" last week, using a permanent marker to mark the height of the plant on the stake. Can't believe how much they've grown in less than a week. I just marked a line and the date, but maybe I'll add measurements too. This would be a cute idea for children's garden. Would be fun for kids to mark the lines and watch it grow!

Small Garden, Big Harvest

First, a confession. I have two gardens. I have my small porch garden where everything is grown in containers and I also have a 10ft x 10ft plot in my town's community garden. I did reference my community garden plot in this post about the garden as my sandbox. And I do share lots of pictures from my garden plot outside of this blog.

But this blog is mainly focused on the porch garden and this post in particular is exclusively from the porch.

Harvest time is in full swing now, which is really the most fun part about porch gardening. Almost every day I can walk out my front door and pick something for dinner.

I love the colors of these "sweet pickle" peppers.

These huge Italian peppers are called "The Godfather". The name definitely influenced my purchase of these seeds. It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

"Black Beauty" eggplant is doing very well in the Earthbox.

Here's a view of part of the porch garden from 8/15/13. Eggplant and peppers in the front row, tomatoes in the back by the fence. More peppers, herbs and cucumbers hiding off camera.

Porch garden harvest from 8/17/13. Peppers, eggplant, pink tomatoes and black cherry tomatoes (my favorite.) I made a nice Italian dinner out of this.

And another porch garden harvest from a week later, 8/24/13. Not bad for just a couple of pots on the front porch. I think I'll cook up some eggplant and roasted sweet peppers for lunch!

Back in Time/ Tomato Adoption Agency

Okay, I meant to do this post almost 2 months ago. So I'm gonna jump in my DeLorean, flip the time circuits on, and set my destination for June 1st, 2013 (i.e. sort the garden pics on my computer by date until I find the right ones. Sometimes I try too hard to make a blog about plants seem exciting.)

Anyway, this brings us to tomato adoption. Every year I grow (way too many) tomato plants from seed. Happily, I know several other gardeners who are willing to adopt a few. So back in June I loaded up the seedlings and delivered them to their new homes in the porch gardens of my family and friends. This year, I delivered tomato plants to five other gardens. Here are photos of a couple of them from back in June and July.

Tomato plants in the car for delivery.

Loving their new home in my mom's porch garden.

Glad to contribute to my sister's first garden this year! I think she's getting a green thumb!

Hooray for more porch gardens!