Mama bird gave me the evil eye

This bird is terrifying.  She was so mad at me for trying to take her picture.  I felt like she was staring into my soul... and I was scared.  I don't want to disturb her, but I want to see her babies!  How long will I have to wait before they hatch?!

I dare you to look into these eyes and not be scared too.

First banana peppers!

I resisted as long as I could, but I went ahead and cut my first two banana peppers off the plant today.  I wanted to see if they would get any larger, but I think they're making it hard for my other banana pepper buds to grow.  Here are all my peppers before:

And here are my banana peppers after:

It took about a month for them to grow to 4" and 5" long (or 5" and 6" if you measure along the outside curve).  My bell pepper is not quite 3" yet, so I'm going to let that one keep growing a bit longer.  Some of my tomatoes don't have that much longer to grow - I'm going to be able to pick 2 or 3 of them in the next day or so!  There are a lot more that size, so I'm sure a bunch will start ripening up soon.

Who's garden is this anyway?

For the past couple weeks, I've been keeping an eye out for my little lizard friend to return.  He was the best garden tenant!  But I found a different tenant living in my garden today.

First of all, let me remind you of my fabric hanging planter that I made earlier this summer:

This morning, I went to water the flowers in this fabric planter and a bird flew out!  I thought it was going to fly right into my face, but instead, it landed on one of the fence posts and proceeded to CHIRP CHIRP CHIRP at me.  I was about to go on and continue my mission of watering the flowers, but then I realized that this furious bird must be a mama bird, and I was right.  That crazy mama made a nest out of my flowers!  Even though she was chirping and yelling and throwing a fit, I had to peak into the fabric planter just long enough to make sure there were some eggs in there (and get a picture, of course).  This is what I saw:

She had 4 speckled eggs in there!  Good thing I heard her chirping at me before I went ahead and watered the flowers.  That would have been a sad, soggy nest.  I might have to sacrifice these flowers since this bird family has obviously settled in good.  That's fine as long as that mama bird stops flying at my face and yelling at me!  I never had these problems with my lizard friend...

I didn't mean to grow a snowman

My tomato plant is getting huge!  Look at how tall it is now:

And it's covered in tomatoes from top to bottom:

This is the oldest bunch, the largest of which is about 1 and a half inches long:

Look at that tomato on the left.  It's a snowman!  Or maybe a tomato-man.  Either way, it's weird.

The tomato-man isn't the problem, though.  The problem is that a couple of the tomatoes in this bunch had blossom-end rot.  Lame!  I need to start giving them tomato food and make sure I water them on a more regular basis.  I blame grad school.

I grew my first banana pepper!

I went away for the weekend and my two largest banana peppers blew up!

This is the oldest banana pepper.  It's hard to tell the difference between the bell pepper buds and banana pepper buds in my older pictures, but I believe this banana pepper first opened its flower and started growing about 3 weeks ago.  Now it's about 3 and a half or 4 inches long.

 Since I've never grown banana peppers before, I'm not sure how long I should wait before I pick them.  Anyone know?

And here are my bell peppers!  They're still only about 2 inches long and the bottom one is growing crazy shaped.

Hanging Planter Labels

I just made the cutest labels for my hanging planters!!  Last summer, we wrote the name of each plant in sharpie on the front side of the milk container and it lasted for the entire growing season.  But this summer, for some reason, the sharpie washed off after only a few days.  I decided to make some labels that are cute and hopefully durable and weatherproof.  Check them out:

What I did was take one of those 9 by 13 aluminum baking pans and write/engrave the name of each plant with a pen.  I took a box cutter and cut a square around each plant name, and then I took some pliers and folded the edges back so no one could get cut.  I went over the engraved names with sharpie so they stood out more and covered the front in a layer of packing tape to protect the sharpie from washing away again.  The last thing I did was use a single-hole punch, thread some twine, and tie them to my hanging planters.  They look so good!  I hope they last all season.  (Also, see the end of this post for an update on how my plants are doing!)

Baby fruit update:
     - I have at least 9 baby tomatoes and the biggest is already the size of a grape!
     - I have 1 baby bell pepper, but it's so tiny, the flower petals are still around it.
     - I have 1 open flower on the banana pepper plant that should show fruit soon.
     - I have 3 baby zucchinis!  The largest is only about an inch long.

Red, White, and Blue

I made a beautiful arrangement in my window box!  I didn't mean for it to be so patriotic, but I guess it is heading toward that time of year.

I reused my little yellow bucket from last summer for some of the extra flowers.

I sat outside and read for a couple hours this morning and I was surrounded by flowers near my veggies, flowers on the table, and flowers hanging in my fabric planter.  It was so nice!

Planting SEads for the Second Summer

I'm back in business for my second attempt at growing a mini vegetable garden!  Last summer, I grew 2 roma tomato plants, 1 cherry tomato plant, 2 bell pepper plants, 1 jalapeno plant, and 1 unsuccessful zucchini plant.  That was a lot for me to keep up with, so this summer, I'm taking a step down and only growing 4 plants.  I'm growing the bell peppers again, but this time I only have 1 plant so none of them go to waste.  I'm doing the same thing with my roma tomatoes, but this time I'm growing it in a planter on the ground instead of in a hanger.  I was most excited about my zucchini plant last year, so I'm trying again in hopes that it will properly fruit this time.  The last one is a banana pepper plant (sweet and mild rather than spicy), which I'm trying instead of jalapenos this year.  The jalapenos grew the easiest out of all my plants last summer, but I just couldn't keep up with it and I hate to let any of my veggies go to waste.

I got the plants 3 weekends ago, and once I brought them home and put them in the planters, here's what the set-up looked like.  The tomato plant is in the planter on the ground, and the hanging planters from left to right are the zucchini plant, the bell pepper plant, and the banana pepper plant.

And here's a close-up of my baby roma tomato plant:

3 weeks later, here's what the plants look like:

And this is what my cute little roma tomato plant has grown into:

I finally had a break from homework today and was able to go pick up a tomato cage from Lowes.  I know I should have done it a couple weeks ago (before my tomato plant turned into a monster!), but I'll get it to work.

This is the most exciting part... I have baby zucchinis growing already!!  They're pretty tiny, but you can definitely see a couple thick stems that are definitely the beginning of a little fruit.  I'm so excited!  Check out these zucchini babies:

Maybe that only excites me, but you have no idea how badly I wanted some homegrown zucchinis last year!  It better work this time.

I'm also growing flowers!  I just got my window box and my little yellow bucket set up today after my trip to Lowes, so I'll get pics of that tomorrow.

Best Homemade Pizza Ever

Get ready for your mouth to water!  You're going to be so jealous of the pizza I made a couple nights ago.  It was so yummy and so beautiful!  I used 3 of my green bell peppers and half a dozen of my Roma tomatoes, along with some mozzarella and pepperoni and a smidge of pepper.

Now for the close-ups:

I know you're jealous, right?

I had a couple extra bell peppers that I couldn't fit on the pizza, and in the past couple days, they've turned completely red!  They're really pretty.  I think I'm going to pick another green one and make a stirfry with the red and green bell peppers.  I noticed something else from my garden had turned red today, too -- one of my jalapenos is almost completely red!  I've never seen that before, but it looks cute.  Does the color change effect the spiciness?

 

Still Going Strong

I got back to my garden after being gone this weekend and I got to pick a ton of veggies!  I got 11 jalapenos, 5 bell peppers, and 7 Roma tomatoes.  The jalapenos are about 2 1/2 inches, the Romas are 2 to 3 inches, and the bell peppers are only 2 1/2 to 3 inches.  I had hoped they would get at least 4 inches long, but they still look and smell delicious!  I plan on making a couple homemade pizzas with some of the bell peppers and Roma tomatoes.

The bell pepper flower buds started showing up on Aug. 5 but I don't have a picture or a plant log note about the actual bell pepper fruit until Aug. 22.  That means it took about 40 days for that baby fruit to mature into a 2 1/2 to 3 inch bell pepper.  I would say that they stopped growing at least a week or week and a half ago, so maybe they only need 25 to 30 days to mature.  One of them already has a spot that's starting to turn orange.

My jalapenos have done better than any of my other plants by far.  They're still going strong and there are a ton left to pick!

We even made stuffed jalapenos!  They were sooooo yummy!  We started eating them before I could get a picture, but we made at least a pound or a pound and a half of them.

The only problem I've ever had with my jalapenos was a mystery spot on a single jalapeno a couple weeks ago.  I don't know what it was, but it looked weird.  If it was rotten, you would think it would turn black or something.  But it turned a very light color in just one spot and I haven't seen it on any other jalapenos since.

And I was worried that my little lizard friend had either moved on to a different yard or had been snatched up by a bird, but he came back!  That obnoxious little dude is still eye-balling me, too.

My plants look very healthy, especially for it starting to get so cold out.  But my tomato plants are so heavy that the branches keep collapsing and I either have to tie or prop them up.  I might try growing them in a planter on the ground next year so they have more support.

I should be able to pick another half a dozen bell peppers and a dozen more jalapenos in the next few days.  Same with my Romas.  Those cherry tomatoes are the slowest to mature -- I've only gotten one ripe cherry tomato this whole time!  They all need to hurry up if they don't want the cold weather to kill them.

Here's my little "helper" giving you a big aaarrrrroooooooooooohhh!!!

My Biggest Fan?

I found an interesting new creature hanging out by my plants today.  I went outside this afternoon and was surprised to discover a lizard sitting on the plastic of one of my plant hangers!  After he got over his second of being stunned by my presence, he quickly regained his confidence and scurried up to the rope of the plant hanger.  I say confidence, but he was actually really obnoxious!  Check him out:

It turns out he's a green anole lizard.  They like to eat grasshoppers and crickets -- something they have in common with my dog.  Apparently they don't eat veggies, so I suspect he's on my plants because he's after the little black ants crawling all over the place.  I guueeeesssss that's okay.  But I'm still mad at him.  I tried so hard to shoo him away!  I yelled at him, I whined at him, I bargained with him, I told my dog she had to help (which she didn't; she just sniffed the ground and was a totally useless helper).  My neighbor even had to poke his head out his door to see what I was freaking out about!  I chased that little douche (the lizard, not my neighbor) all over that plant and he still wouldn't leave.  I told you he was obnoxious.  Here are some of the best pictures from our battle:

His butt is on my vegetables!  I will definitely be washing my bell peppers before I eat them.

Look at this little douche rolling his eyes at me, like he's thinking, "Who me?  I'm just a cute little lizard, keeping these bell peppers warm with my stinky lizard butt.  Don't mind me."  I hate him and his sassy eye-rolling.

Okay, lizard... You may have won this battle this time, but you're going down if you start eating my vegetables.

My First Roma Tomato

I finally picked my first Roma tomato a few days ago!  As a reminder, let me show you its baby picture:

In my plant log, I note that Aug. 5 was the first time I noticed this baby tomato pop up, and this is the first picture of it from that day.  It might have gone unnoticed for a day or so, though.  I waited several weeks before I noticed any change in color, but then it start turning a different shade of green, then yellow, then orange, and finally red!  It turned a different color each day.  Here are the countdown photos:

Aug. 3 - starting to change color

 

Aug. 4 - turning yellow 

Aug. 5 - turning orange (exactly a month after the original picture)

Aug. 6 - almost completely red!

Aug. 7 - right before I picked my beautiful Roma off the plant.

And you can see how many more I have that should start changing colors in the next couple weeks!

I picked this Roma tomato on Aug. 7, about 33 days after the baby fruit was originally spotted on the plant.  It is about 2 1/2 inches long.  I haven't tasted it yet, but it looks delicious!  My green bell peppers are also 2 1/2 inches long right now, but I'm hoping those will keep growing.  Here's my most recent picture of the bell peppers: