I remember in March, when I scoured the local nursery for my beloved ‘maters. They were little babies and I was so excited to see them grow and make full-blown ‘maters for me to enjoy.
I was so giddy when I saw the first ‘maters on the vine. So perfect and organic too!
After fighting squash bugs and stink bugs, most of these ‘maters got infested. Organic gardening was making me impatient, cranky and worrysome. I only ended up with 5 good ‘maters out of the crop of 7 ‘mater plants.
And now, in the heat of July, the ‘mater plants are dead. Full of flowers, but nothing happening. I knew it was their time. I’m fairly sure after this season, I need to brainstorm ways to keep things organic without the bug fuss. I’m not a bug person, and definitely lost to the bugs this year.
I am, however, very hopeful for the future. The future of the peppers.
Perhaps this plant will make me lots of jalapenos to make lots of happy jalapeno jelly with. It will take me out of the garden fail that was my beloved ‘maters.
How has your vegetable garden been this year?
I’m a pretty amateur gardener…and gardening in SoCal is harder than I thought!
I lost my petunias to bunny rabbits, and the sun scorched and withered my cucumbers.
My two tomato plants are hanging on, but their not producing much and my roma tomatoes are turning out to be the size of grape tomatoes!
But I’m hopeful for both of our peppers!
Happy Gardening!
Aw, poor ‘maters! We are first-time gardeners, so we’re doing things simple this year with two topsy turvys & 2 planters. We’ve gotten 2 green tomatoes on our “early girl” tomato plant, 1 of which is starting to rot on the bottom & neither of which have even a hint of orange or red on them yet… the bell pepper plant produced one great pepper & has 2 more on the way. Our planters have jalapenos, which have been our most successful plant, by FAR, yeilding probably 20 peppers so far with many still growing, and our cherry tomato plant has about 4 green tomatoes that don’t seem to be doing much. It’s frustrating to check on them every day & not have the progress you want! Better luck to both of us next year!