Growing Garden

Our tomato plants started growing at a rate that we couldn't keep-up with. Every day, new branches needed redirected back into their tomato cages and suckers needed pluckin'. I remember taking this picture of Jason standing in the garden and being ecstatic about how tall they were. Two weeks later, some of them we as tall as him. They're indeterminate plants so they can get 7' tall and will continue to grow until the first frost. We're gettin' an itch to pick. The tomatoes are a good sized but are probably still needing a couple more weeks to ripen. (Though generally made at the end of the growing season, when there is not enough hours of sunlight to ripen tomatoes, we couldn't help pick a half dozen green tomatoes to make a sugary green tomato cake for my birthday.)

First harvest(s): banana peppers, jalapenos, 8-ball zucchini, one-third of our onion crop, and a couple green peppers 

With our first two 8-ball zucchini squashes (and first green pepper), I hollowed out the centers and stuffed them with ground turkey, veggies, and lentils. Click here for my recipe. It was delicious (and healthy). We'll be making this one again and again.


As I've mentioned previously, the weather in Iowa hasn't been especially garden-friendly with frequent downpours, wind, and flooding. This past Saturday, we awoke to tornado sirens blaring at 3 a.m. Apparently a mini-twister decided to tear through our precious tomato garden. Strong winds toppled several plants and took 2' of the tops of all of the plants. Sad stuff. Three days later, it appears that we may have saved our backyard crop by re-erecting the plants and adding additional (strong) supports.