I have decided to start a new post stream this time; when I keep updating the same old stream, it seems as though postings are lost in the forest.

The tomato plants this year are going nuts; the planting tricks I mentioned on the earlier posts are proving to be tremendous. We have several plants over six feet tall, and these plants are several feet in circumference.  At only mid July, we have harvested 12.8 lbs of tomatoes. Also, I have landed on a system for supporting the plants: broad, metal cages made from wide frame mesh (like 4″ x 4″ squares; you want large squares to facilitate harvesting) . The cage is simply a circle, formed from a 42″ x 84″ ‘Remesh Sheet’, rolled by hand (roughly) into shape, and secured with zip-ties. The sheets are $7.98 each at Home Depot. At the end of the growing season, you can clip the zip-ties, and store them.

The zucchini plant is enormous; we started harvesting baby zucchini about three weeks ago (they were fantastic), and now we have individual fruit over twelve inches in length. Current harvest total in zucchini:  ten lbs.

As for cilantro: I have had some success in growing,  but not in sustained growth. Still working on the cilantro.

Basil: growing well, be we harvest it so damn much, it never grows large.