the summer growing season

Summer is coming to an end, and we're now seeing tomatoes on our plants. The summer started with tomato plants growing slowly and when they showed flowers, they didn't set fruit. The flowers withered or dropped. It wasn't until late into summer that the tomato flowers began to set fruit and eventually signs of tomatoes were popping up all over the place.


 


One of the black zebra variety finally ripened after hanging on the vine all summer. TH and I enjoyed it sliced into wedges, with a bit a quality fruity olive oil, basil, and salt. It was the best tomato we have had in a long time! So much so that's it got TH excited and pleased. Before he was a bit annoyed that the tomato plants weren't producing tomatoes.

 

The chili pepper plants have done well too. The jalapeno plants didn't produce to many peppers. The cayenne pepper plants are full of hanging cayenne peppers. They're long and still green. They should be turning red soon. And it's still producing flowers! The cherry pepper plants did well and produced some nice red peppers. Unfortunately, they were not producing enough to collect so I can pickle them. And it was susceptible to spider mites, too! And they too, continue to produce flowers. And the habenero plants are finally producing flowers, which will in turn become habenero peppers. I'm looking forward to collecting these hot babies!



 And lastly but not least, one of our pots of strawberry plants are producing another round of strawberries. This time, these are bigger than the last ones I collected. However, they lacked flavor and sweetness. Regardless, the fact that they are still producing fruit is welcomed.

producing ever more

It is October and the temperatures have dropped. And yet, the tomato plants and hot pepper plants continue to produce flower and fruit. It's baffling to me, or perhaps this is not surprising to seasoned gardeners. In any case, it's great to see! The tomatoes have been very juicy and tasty! The jalapeño still lack the heat I expect but the cayenne does pack a surprising punch!

I am pleased that I will continue to have tomatoes and hot peppers into autumn.

thinning out

We edit the garden again and we're more pleased with the space we've taken back. Being a first time gardener, I was a bit overly zealous about growing things. We started off with seeds but I didn't realize I had to thin them out, and when I did, I felt bad about getting rid of the seedlings. Well, I eventually thinned out the herd! Any of the tomato plants that we have that were not producing were chucked. It sounds cruel but we've adopted a policy in the balcony garden. Each plant must earn their keep by producing fruit or flower. We got rid of 3 or 4 unproductive tomato plants. The balcony feels more spacious now and the surviving plants have room to grow bigger.

The marigolds seem to have sprouted all the flowers it could so I removed the whole plants. I noticed one of the basil plants was being eaten by something so I removed that plant. I removed a nasturtium plant too. I got rid of some other herbs too that were not replenshing.

Despite the sad news of having to get rid of some plants, there are some goods news to share. I noticed a couple of the cayenne peppers started to turn color. In fact, I used one in a chili I cooked this past weekend. One of the chili pepper plants has finally produced jalapeño peppers. I guess my manual pollination paid off. I foresee fresh salsa in the near future!

And a cluster of yellow pear-shaped tomatoes ripened this past weekend and I made a tiny tomato salad with some basil from the garden. These little guys were very juicy, sweet, and flavorful. There's more of these to come! We planted these from seeds and we have a few of them plants. And they're producing clusters left and right and continuing to grow taller!

And in fact, I noticed one of the red tomatoes have started to turn color. We were beginning to worry if they would ever ripen or if we would be eating green tomatoes, which we did as a few had fallen off as we were reorganizing the plants on the balcony. I eventually made fried green tomatoes with them, and they tasted great! I also tried green tomatoes with salt and fresh cracked green peppercorns and they also tasted great!

we have cayenne peppers!

I was originally worried that the hot pepper plants were not going to produce fruit. As pretty as the downward facing flowers are, they would drop without setting fruit. The problem as I discovered was, they needed to be pollinated. I went in and pollinated them manually either with a Q-tip or finger. I also added a bit of fertilizer too, and I think that helped give the plants a bit of a boost!

This past weekend while doing a survey of the plants, I noticed large cayenne peppers under leaves. I was amazed how many I found! I would push aside some leaves, and another one would appear and there are more to come!