Tomatoes! Tomatoes everywhere!

It rained all weekend. Yay!!

The grass is greening up, the rain barrel is overflowing, and the garden has exploded!

Left: south plot
Right: north plot
Acting innocent after he just tried to walk through the north plot: Pete

The tomatoes are as big now as they ever got last year! 

Here's another angle of the north plot: 

There are peppers in there somewhere. 

Peppers?

I didn't have much luck with peppers at all last year, and this year looks like it might be only slightly better, but for different reasons. This year, the tomatoes have grown so much that they're going to choke the peppers out! They were nowhere near doing that last time. 

I've been training the tomatoes to grow up the lattices, but they seem to keep sprouting extra limbs overnight and spreading over the peppers. They must have something against peppers. 

Last year we had yellow, red, orange, and banana peppers. This year we have cubanelle, jalapeno, serrano, and banana peppers. No more bell peppers for us. I think it was just too hot for them last time. 

But I am glad about the tomatoes! We have so many green tomatoes already! 

The big green tomatoes are hiding. 

We have tons of blooms, too! I think we may have more blooms now than we ever did last summer. 

Of course, we also have cherry tomatoes that didn't get stunted with a freak mid-May frost. Last frost was in April this year, and it stayed in April where it belonged. Because it knew what was good for it. 

Mmmmmm, tomatoes... I can already taste them

Also, most of my tomato plants are also from an in-state nursery or a local grower. Only two are from Home Depot this year. That's probably a huge part of the growth difference, too. I have no clue where Home Depot gets their plants, but they were a great option for less-expensive plants for a first-time gardener. 

Also, because my husband insists, does anyone need any cilantro? We had some volunteer from last year, and it's kind of taken over the south plot. I didn't want to pull it out earlier and "punish" it for volunteering, and then it kind of went haywire over the last week. 

Bellybutton-height Cilantro and green beans with leaves the size of my hand

I've been putting a lot more effort into my garden this year, and I think it's showing. I learned a lot from last year's garden and its meager success.

I hope to be as good at gardening as all of my grandparents someday!

I'm really proud of where my garden is now, but I need to temper that a bit since most of the growing season is still ahead of us and tons of things could happen!

But let's not think of that.

Here's to a great garden!