May was such a quick month for me it’s a bit of a blur. I ended up getting some rain so every day I did not need to go out and water. I also got to harvest from the garden a couple of times when needed. All in all, it was a decent month for my garden.
Speaking of rain the past week it has been dumping buckets. As such there was not an opportunity to get any photos without it being cloudy outside and a bit dimmer. It had only rained a couple hours before me taking these photos.
Bell Peppers
My one green and 2 red bell pepper plants have been doing well. Outside of a worm coming and chewing on things a couple of times here or there was nothing major to deal with. It’s been rather nice just having to water them if even that and collecting my reward from harvesting.
The first green pepper plant I got has been growing clusters of bell peppers. A couple of times I’ve removed a small one in-between a bunch of them and just diced it up to toss into omelets, meatloaf, tacos, or anything else I think to put them in.
I have about eight remaining with one of them being around the size of my fist. Not exactly as big as the ones in the store. However a whole lot more flavor. Most of the ones I’ve been picking I assume would have gotten much bigger if they were not so overcrowded as I’ve been trying to give them a little more space.
In a couple of them, I cut open I could not believe the number of seeds that were inside. No idea if they could be replanted or not and I already have more than I could use so I did not save any. I almost feel cheated by how few seeds the ones at the store have!
The first red pepper plant that I got a few weeks after the green one now has five peppers and a couple of them are starting to turn slightly red. These are frankly the ones I want to the most. There is even one bigger than anything I have on my green bell pepper.
Finally, the third bell pepper that I got much later than the other two is still growing. No peppers on it yet which is perfect. As I would most likely pick any off at this state of things till it develops a lot more.
I’m hoping to have a bit of a staggered approach this year will leave me with always having a couple of peppers to pick when I need them. If things keep going the way they are I will end up with a lot more than I have plans for. I’ll have to start finding other meals to use them in!
Jalapeno
The time has come where I’ve lost all hope of keeping up with this one! Quite a few of the jalapenos are going be traded with some locals and I’m not quite sure what for yet. I stopped counting after 25 or so. I’ve also eaten quite a few.
The other day I tried out some that were stuffed with cream cheese and had bacon warped around them. They were tasty but trying to eat three jalapenos was a bit much and gave me the hiccups! At least I found a way to enjoy a number of them over a day or two when needed. As a few need to be pulled within the next couple of days.
Tomatoes
My two tomato plants are looking much better than they were last month. No one that I know of in my area seems to have any actual tomatoes on the vine growing. Mine looks better than most of what I have seen that others have as well.
Outside of maybe one or two nights that got into the fifties maybe that was as cold as things got. My only concern at this point is getting to much rain and them wilting as they have done in past years. The ones in my area like it hot, humid, and not raining. The rest of the season for sure is going be a boiler so I’m sure they will love it.
Herbs For Days
I have chives, cilantro. dill, parsley, and basil, and everything have been going amazing. If only the tomatoes would get to growing I could start making some salsa as everything else is ready to go that I plan on growing this year.
This is my second attempt at having cilantro this year and this time it is doing well. I almost feel like it’s going to need a wider pot at some point.
At this point, the dill has outgrown everything in height and I did not even get a full photo of it! You would think I was growing a tree or something. I’m not quite sure if that is something I need to keep an eye on or just let it keep going its things.
I don’t use a lot of dill in a year so this should more than meet my needs. I might try and dehydrate some next month. Chances are I’ll forget and not. Like I always do.
I think this curly parsley has outgrown what I even had last year. A couple of times a week I go out and just cut some off to have fresh parsley in the house.
This is the first year I tried growing basil and I was surprisingly shocked at the unique smell it gives off. I don’t think I’ve cooked a lot with it in my life and when I have it must have been the dried stuff. The different taste it has to anything else I tend to eat makes this my new favorite thing.
I also noticed just a couple of leaves is enough to fill an area with the smell it gives out for a few hours. I’m somewhat tempted to just have some around the house once in a while for that feature alone.
Final Thoughts
With how crazy 2020 has been so far this year having my garden has been rather comforting. While I’m not growing a lot of food it’s enough where I’m not having to buy anything I’m growing at the store now. With the way prices have been increasing, I’m somewhat glad I can just pick off something fresh when I need it.
I almost want to expand out my garden even further. That however doing it out of pots and the amount of dirt I’ve had to buy is not exactly something I can scale out much further than what I’m already doing. Raised beds and having a truck drop off dirt might be something I do one of these years. For now, this is keeping me quite busy when I have some free time to water and check in on things.
Garden Journal 2020
Information
Photos were taken and content was written by @Enjar.
@Simplymike runs the monthly Community Garden Journal Challenge which you can find here.
