How does my garden grow?

My garden is growing quite swimmingly, thank you very much! Aside from some early problems with snails eating some of my young sprouts, things are doing pretty well.

My mammoth sunflowers are growing like crazy (they have gone from an inch to about a foot tall over two weeks!)


My tomato plants got big enough that they began to need cages (which I may have placed around the tomatoes upside-down... I'm not sure if they go hoop up or pointy end up.) There is still only one tomato, but there are lots of little flowers all over the plants, so I think there should be more soon!


My peppers are getting bigger, and pretty much every plant is flowering or fruiting.



And finally, the herbs that I put in the (sage, dill, cilantro) are starting to make their leaves and show promise of growing big and strong. Their rows are not quite as perfect as I would like, but I blame the cable man for planting his ladder in the middle of my herb garden. NO way it's my fault for just throwing them on the ground willy-nilly.

Yesterday, we had our first garden meal using basil- I made basil-pecan pesto pasta. it was delicious... and CHEAP. about 10-20 cents worth of pecans, olive oil, garlic, and parmesan, free basil, and a 50 cent package of spaghetti noodles. I used the bottom leaves, any leaves with a bug-eaten section (I pulled off the bad sections of course) and the flowers that keep popping up and I keep pulling off.


yesterday I planted some yellow summer squash and some winter spaghetti squash, as well as some smaller sunflowers. I also want to put in some string beans somewhere, but I'm afraid it's getting too hot. I'm going to try and post about the garden every two weeks, because I am continually amazed by how fast these things grow, and by the fact that I'm not killing the plants. And if anyone has any tips on how to grow string beans (I think I'm going to put some pole beans up by our chain link fence near the mammoth sunflowers, and some bush beans near the tomatoes) then send your advice my way!