Glad I'm taking pictures - boy how quickly they grow!

I'm doing my first SFG this year, and I guess that this is why parents take so many pictures of their kids - you just don't notice how much they grow when you see them every day! I just took a new picture of the garden this afternoon and compared it to a few weeks ago. I didn't actually think things had grown much, but what a difference:


This is a picture from May 1, right after I planted the peppers (middle two squares) and tomatoes (top two squares on the right).


Here's what it looks like today. From this picture you can't quite see how well the tomatoes have grown, but the peppers - wow! They look significantly bigger. What fun.

This post made me smile. I was looking at pictures earlier today and had the very same conversation with my husband. A week and a half can make such a huge difference.

Great looking garden!

Great pictures!

Thanks for sharing

Yes, it is amazing how fast everything grows in MM. I took several pictures yesterday too. SFG is so easy, you have to find something to do to keep yourself busy.

Thanks everyone. Here's hoping things continue to grow - we're getting plenty of rain up here in NJ this week!

Well boy am I excited. I found blossoms on my Roma tomato plant (in a pot), my pea plants, and my hot banana pepper plant! Here are a couple photos:


This is the roma tomato plant. I hope I was right in letting it get bushy since it's a determinate plant. . .


Here's the garden as a whole about two months in. THe only things not showing well are the basil and oregano because they were planted from seed on May 1. But they are sprouting.


A close-up of the big stuff growing. The zucchini squash in the back left, the peas in the back second from left (many blossoms opened today, this was taken yesterday), the hot pepper right in front of that, and my two other tomato plants next to the peas (sungold and ramapo). I'm trying not to be concerned that these two tomato plants aren't as big and bushy as the roma plant. . .

Woohoo. I picked my first harvest today.



Sugar snap peas, shallot tops, parsley, and some scallions that came up from a pot I'd planted last year.



And the dinner I made from said harvest. A shrimp stir-fry with thai chili sauce. The peas were outrageously sweet - I wish I'd had more of them!

That looks amazing. Congrats! Care to share thar recipe? I'd love to give that a try!

jazzymaddy wrote:That looks amazing. Congrats! Care to share thar recipe? I'd love to give that a try!

Sure - it's a very modified version of this: http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Stir_fried-Shrimp-In-Garlic-Sauce-Recipezaar . I didn't have a lot of the stuff in my cabinet, but it's just a basic stir fry dish.

I used vidalia onion (which I had in the pantry), scallions, shallot tops, and peas along with the garlic and ginger in the vegetable part. No fresh thai chiles in the house, but they'd probably have been too hot for me anyway! If any of my garden peppers had been ready, I would have added them (I think I'm going to have to freeze some peas so that I can make this again when the peppers are ready ).

For the sauce, I used white wine vinegar, sherry, thai chili sauce, vegetable oil (probably would have been better with sesame oil, but I didn't have any in the house). No soy sauce (I don't like it). Since I didn't use soy, I did add some salt into my recipe.

I added about half the parsley when I added the sauce, and left half to top off the dish at the end so it was really fresh tasting. If my basil had been ready, I would have used that instead of the parsley.

The only thing I didn't like about the recipe is that I don't think the liquid to cornstarch ratio is right - it made the sauce way too thick, so I added more chicken stock after I put in the cornstarch to loosen the sauce a bit more.

Thanks so much. Now if I can just remember to buy shrimp next time I'm at the store, we'll be set. Cannot wait to try it.

jazzymaddy wrote:Thanks so much. Now if I can just remember to buy shrimp next time I'm at the store, we'll be set. Cannot wait to try it.

You're welcome! Ooh, and you're down south and can probably get Gulf Coast shrimp easier than I can up here! I have to wait and snatch it up in 2 lb bags on the rare occasions I can get it in the supermarket here. The wild caught are so much better than farm raised.

Way to go Moswell! It is amazing what difference a fortnight or a month makes. I hope my sfg veg grows this fast too. Now you have made my stomach start rumbling with that pic. Snap peas are horrendously expensive and flabby by the time they are on the store shelves here so they were one of the first new things I wanted to grow this year.

Just an update - my sungold tomato definitely has survived the torment I put it through trying to get rid of aphids, and has grown significantly and has several buds and itty-bitty tomatoes. Everything else is doing quite nicely as well!

Here's the garden as of 6/20:


The Roma tomato isn't doing quite as nicely recovering from my aphid treatment disaster (see http://squarefoot.creatingforum.com/t7819-should-i-give-up-on-these-plants), but it still has some buds and a few tomatoes. When I went hunting down replacement plants, I picked up a couple extra tomato plants, and those are in the other two pots (a Moreton on the left, and Ramapo in the middle).


The zucchini is looking great, and I can't wait to see which of the little buds will turn into flowers.

July 5 update:

Pulled peas and shallots today. Got a fair harvest from each I think, especially considering I never was able to grow much before.

Here are some photos of how things stand:

I'm actually getting more Roma tomatoes despite nearly killing the plant. I'm thinking that with the new buds, I may end up with around 20 or so tomatoes.


The SFG as it stands today with peas and shallots pulled. I'll put another sungold tomato plant that I rooted from a cutting where the peas were.


Male flowers on the zucchini. There are some stems that show female buds (little zucchinis below them), but the buds haven't opened yet.


You'll have to trust me that this is a little banana pepper.


The sungold is producing like mad now. If I remember correctly from last year, these are close to the right size now, so I'm hoping they'll start ripening soon!

I've learned so much just in a few months from this board and the gardening I've done. I'm very excited, because it's nice to see fruit actually growing and ripening. Sungolds and Romas are turning color (sungolds a bit more slowly, but I can definitely see some color changes). The bell pepper has quite a bit of fruit set. My herbs are just wonderful - I love being able to walk out and pick what I need to cook with. The zucchini is finally starting to show some signs of vegetable growth - the first few female stems didn't ever grow enough to have their flowers open, but I've got at least one that looks about ready to open now. Right now the only thing bothering me is that I'm going to be out of town for a week, and it's going to kill me not to be around to enjoy the garden!



The ripening Romas - I only have a few that are ripening at the moment due to last month's disaster. I'm not sure these will be good to eat - they're a little oddly shaped, probably due to the stress I put them through. But the plant is setting a lot more fruit now, so in time I'll have more and might get a batch of tomato sauce out of it.


Growing zucchini.


Lovely bell peppers.


Ripening sungolds.