Plants' Update

Last week's rainy, damp weather was great for our outdoor plants (as well, as the weeds--I spent yesterday afternoon pulling them out). Our tomato plants have tons of yellow blossoms and this weekend the first tomatoes made their appearance. Ella doesn't understand why she can't pick them off the vine, yet.

All three plants started out the size of the one in the white container....
(I think that one doesn't have good drainage, so I might replant it since it's still early in the season)

lots of juicy grape tomatoes in our future!

Our cucumber plants are spreading rapidly, almost strangling the salvia plant. We have quite a few blossoms on them, too, although no cucumbers, yet.

cucumbers surrounding salvia

cucumber blossom

The eggplant is large, so much so that I might have to transplant it to the ground so that it can continue to grow well. I haven't grown eggplant before, but by the size of the leaves and plant, I think it might require more space.

eggplant outgrowing its container

The banana pepper plant's flowers have produced 2 little peppers already, so it will be exciting to see how long it takes for them to become full-size and turn bright yellow.

2 mini peppers

Basil and cilantro are growing well, especially the basil (we have four pots going at once). It continues to get bushy, so we've been picking the leaves so that it will be healthy and, the best part, to make homemade pesto! I love the smell and taste of pesto on sandwiches, pasta, or mixed in with low-fat sour cream for a veggie or pita chip dip. Yesterday we made our second batch of the season. I used some on a sandwich and froze the rest in ice cube trays so we can use it in the fall and winter when hot summer days will only be a memory. As you can see from the pictures below, Ella enjoyed helping me make the pesto in my mini-chopper:

Just added the pine nuts to the chopper

measuring out the basil leaves to add to the pine nuts

Ella trying to plug the cord back into the chopper
(our finished product ready to go into ice cube trays)

Here are a few other garden pictures from today:

potted petunia plant
(keeps growing well since I've been dead-heading it every day)


the hydrangea bush that we chopped completely to the ground in March
(you couldn't see anything but dirt, then...we had our fingers crossed that it would grow back healthy this year)