Back in early July, M’s Mom or MIL as E calls her came in to visit for a long weekend. It was great having her and in addition, she helped us jump start our garden, flowers, vegetables and even spices.

We took some pictures back in mid July of our fruit and vegetable plants we put in. Those pictures are below, but notice the sickly looking Avocado tree in one of them. That tree took on a story of its own that will be addressed in this post.

We have planted the following vegetables/spices so far (left to right) : Hot peppers, Basil, Cucumber, Beefsteak tomato, Rosemary and finally green peppers.  The Green Peppers are too far to the right in the first picture.

The next couple pictures shows our lemon and Avocado tree back in July.  Please ignore the lawn problems, it is on the list

So, its been about a month since these photos, it was a rough final few weeks in July with little to no rain, but since, we have had rain almost daily!  As you can see in the next set of pictures, virtually all of the vegetables and spices have thrived.

First up, the hot pepper plant:

Next up, moving to the right, is the Basil plant.  This is after taking two ziplock bags worth of basil to family in Miami about 10 days ago, and removing enough basil to make a chicken pesto pizza and chicken pesto pasta for three.

The cucumber plant also seems huge, and as you can see, currently has a number of cucumbers being grown and hopefully ready to eat soon!

Next, the rosemary, which is doing just fine, although we haven’t tried any of it yet.

Another one that is looking great, is the green pepper plant.  We actually worried about this one to start as it wasn’t growing for a while, but now there is two peppers that are probably 1/3 the size I’d expect in only about 1 week of growing!

Next,here is a picture of our tomato plant from 8/23 followed by another from 8/25 after pruning and treating for a fungus.  We noticed that over the past week or so, the plant wasn’t looking so healthy.  With all the rain, it appears it got a fungus .

One thing we are learning as first time home owners and gardeners is that obviously too little rain is bad, but too much is not good either!  We are hoping it will come back strong, without the fungus and with normal treatment of it.  No fruits had begun growing anyway, so at this point, its just a delay we hope!

Now, lets check in on our fruit trees.

First, the lemon plant, which seems to be chugging along.  We know it will take a few years to bear fruit, but, its good to see it doing well!

Finally, of the fruit trees, next up is what WAS the Avocado tree.  This was a tough situation as when we originally bought it, we didn’t read the instructions, but also the instructions weren’t pointed out to us.  After it started to look bad,  like the first picture, we went back in and were given advice, which did nothing.  We went back a few days later, got different advice, which still didn’t work.  Finally on the third week (they have a 30 day guarantee typically), we were given the same advice as the first week and to also replant it higher to the surface, but it seems that was too late.  The nursery has been great and is getting us a new big Avocado plant that we will follow instructions to the T, but for now, this is the site of the old tree.

The last piece to cover is our newest plants.  We had wanted to grow a few more spices, but things we’d use.  Looking at what the nurseries and Lowe’s and Home Depot sold, nothing stood out but no one had cilantro or Italian oregano.  So, we bought the seeds and grew them ourselves, and started growing them about 3 weeks ago and it has worked out well.  You will notice the first picture of cilantro is doing MUCH better than the oregano, but we are still hopeful.  We will likely transplant at least the cilantro to the garden fairly soon.

Check back for more updates on the garden and other things!

M.