The peppers are officially kaput. I was so hoping a little love and attention might do something but its clear that they caught something that just couldn’t be overcome. I spent some time today really cleaning out the Aerogarden they were in just in case. The tomatoes that were in there with them are still alive and kicking. They’re also fruiting again which I’m both pleased and irritated with.

When I planted the tomatoes initially I followed the instructions on the Aerogarden blogs to make sure they didn’t get crazy tall. Clearly I didn’t do it right. My tomato plant is currently reaching a height of about three feet, well above the level of the lights. I was going to cut them back after the most recent tomato ripened. However, I just don’t have the heart to cut it down. Especially since its throwing quite a few flowers this time. I may have done it some damage cleaning the machine today any ways. I guess we’ll see.

I’m not really worried because the new ones I planted at the beginning of this year are fruiting like crazy. This time I followed the blog to the letter and tried not to let my emotions get in the way. When they said cut them back, this time I cut them back. So far they haven’t gone higher than the lights and every time they started to branch out: snip snip. But they were right. When you do that the plant spends its energy on the fruit instead of growing the plant. There are so many tomatoes growing!

Since the old tomato plant is now alone in the garden I have to decide what I’m going to put in with it. That particular garden can hold six plants at once. You do have to be careful what you plant with tomatoes though. For some reason they say not to plant herbs in with it. I would like to do more peppers but I’m not certain I have any more pods. If I do, then thats what will go in. For now I’m going to see what the tomatoes do on their own.

My basil is still growing. Not as prolifically as in the past but I’m also cutting them to keep them under the lights. Which seems to be working because they started throwing leaves out lower down on the main stem. The cilantro I planted in with the basil never grew. That’s par for the course with the cilantro in the Aerogardens. I have had some success with the cilantro I planted separately in dirt. I think I was under watering it because I had a few stalks growing. Then they wilted. I have two remaining, and I have some more seeds, so I may try planting those in. Cilantro is notoriously hard to grow (at least for me!), and I’d really like some so I can use it in my cooking.

My next project is the garden outside. I planted some random seeds a few weeks ago and something is growing. It’s one of a couple of things: spinach, cucumber, or pumpkins (I think.) I stupidly didn’t label the areas I planted the seeds so I guess it’ll be a surprise. Honestly I’m hoping those die too because I want to go buy some more planting dirt and start over.

I discussed my gardening that area with Scott this weekend because over a year ago we had this crazy idea to turn the area into a cute little zen garden kind of thing. With a fountain and maybe a pond, possibly some turf. But the furthest we got was finding a tall, square pot to use as the fountain. The water pumps are expensive and we’re hemming about finishing the project. Especially since we have at least three others were currently working on.

He’s become very gung-ho about getting our house “in order”. Possibly because we’ll be having guests later this year closer to our wedding. First is finally finishing the “feature wall” in our family room. We’ve only had the wood sitting in our living room since, oh, 2017. Speaking of, next we have to decide exactly what our living room is going to be. No one uses formal living rooms any longer, that I know of, and ours is no exception. He had been using it as his work room for various Halloween costumes and its a sight. I tried cramming all of the clutter behind a Japanese bamboo wall in the corner but its leaking out everywhere.

One final project is our storage room. He’s been very good about cleaning out old random boxes since we downsized our storage units. He’s hoping we can make more room and, possibly, end up getting rid of another of our storage units. At some point our garage needs some love because the cardboard box mountain in the middle of it is driving me nuts. You can usually tell which parts of the house I’ve gotten my hands on because they typically have some sort of order to them. But I’m sad to say I’ve given up once too often and I just hope our house doesn’t start looking like an episode of hoarders.

Back to my garden though. He didn’t seem jazzed at the idea of me planting things in the big empty dirt plot. He still has hopes to do something with it. Which is great, but until then at least I can plant some flowers or something. Maybe I’ll go get that dirt today and some new flowers and just go to town.