first garden on my own

there is a sad trail of dead plants littering the path of my adult life, so i claim temporary insanity when i decided to try my had an a little bit of container gardening this year. i decided to keep it easy, and to only grow things that i knew we'd use: basil, dill, and grape tomatoes.

well, the dill died right away. which sucks because we use it all the time on salmon and in other dishes.

but the basil and grape tomatoes have really taken off on me. i drastically underestimated how big the tomato plants would get, they're towering over their pots now. i've given up tying them to little stakes in their pots and am just letting them take over the rails in the front porch decking. and the tomato plants have given me lots of silly excitement this year, once when they bloomed and now that they're actually growing little tomatoes. i'm getting all giddy again as they're starting to ripen.



i also underestimated the basil, they've gotten too big for their pots too. and we have a LOT (so if you have any recipes that use basil, please send them my way). i was surprised then they started to get little blooms on them, googled that night and found out that's BAD - they were going to seed which makes them crappy. good news is, if you catch them right away, take off the top 1/3 of the stem that's seeding and then give it a couple weeks the flavor will go back to normal. i have been surprised at how fast the basil leaves regenerate after picking them. so it seems i will never run out of basil. well, if i can successfully transfer the plants to indoor living come winter that is....