garden update

I took some photos this week of my garden...  I have a lot of rogue plants trying to take over, so it looks pretty unorganized, but I know where everything is so I guess it doesn't really matter.  Now that I have an idea of how different plants behave as they grow, I can plan out the garden next year and make it much prettier.

So here is my crazy-looking garden.  It's starting to give off a lot of tomatoes and peppers.  The broccoli is finally starting to give less yield and trying to bolt, so I think I'll let it go after the next harvest.  I have a couple gallon ziploc bags to freeze so we'll be able to eat it later on in the year.  I will definitely plant broccoli next year...  it was fabulous and extremely low-maintenance.  The only thing is that is seems to be the wasps' favorite place to hang out, and buzz out in my face to scare me when I'm trying to pick some florets.  At this point, I'm bounding out of the garden and jumping over plants to get the heck out of Dodge, screaming "Uz!  There are WASPS!  I'm ALLERGIC!"  As if he doesn't know by now.  If I'm lucky, he'll come out and scare them away so I can resume my gardening...  after I pick up all the broccoli and tomatoes I spilled on the ground in my haste to get out of there.  Whoops.

This is the view from the porch.  I know it looks crazy.  It'll be crazier at the end of summer when all the baby pumpkins are taking over the backyard.  I feel sorry for Uz when he mows...  he'll have to pick up all the vines and throw them in the garden to avoid chomping them up with the lawn mower.  Ah, well.

The tomato plants are out of control.  The flimsy wire cages didn't do much, so I'll probably invest in some better ones next year...  and work on spacing.  The sun has really been hard on my plants, especially the tomatoes and poblanos.  I'm hoping they pull through alright...  the tomatoes seem okay (they are giving off green fruit!), but the poblanos I'm not so sure about.  I'm crossing my fingers!  Oh, can you spot a couple red tomatoes I need to pick?  There are actually a dozen or so hidden behind all the leaves, but you can only see two or three in this picture.

The tomatillos are obviously trying to take over the entire garden.  I hope they don't cause too much trouble with my other peppers.  There are a couple little tomatillo peppers almost ready to pick!

See that cute purple bell pepper?  It'll be ready in two or three days!  I love them...  we've had several already this summer and they are delicious.  Do you see all the jalapenos?  Just a little longer and they'll be ready.  I have been picking some of the big ones, but I'll have a huge yield from my two plants soon.  I'm really ashamed of all the weeds, but they get that big in just a few days so it's hard to keep up with all of them.  I will be weeding later this week!

These are not all the plants in my garden (I'm missing quite a few herbs and other pepper plants) but I thought it would be fun to show off what we've got going on in the backyard!