Lost tomatoes & Potting new plants

Remember the rain yesterday? Well, it came with lots of wind. *sighs* and the saddest thing of all: two baby grape tomatoes were blown off the plant. They are still green, but they're two grape tomatoes that I won't get to eat. :-(




I know that it's probably a silly thought, but to see those two tomatoes lie on the cold ground... it was just so sad! I know my tomato plant continue to fruit. Here's a photo of the plant after the windy weather.



Cam and I have six tomato plants: one grape tomato, three cherry tomatoes, and two of the regular size tomatoes (Celebrity and Bonnie Original). Since I was in charge of choosing the tomato varieties, I'm the one to blame for the fact that we have more smaller sized tomatoes than regular ones. I'm going to try to convince him to let me buy one more regular sized tomato plant. An heirloom would be a nice addition.

Seven tomato plants isn't that bad at all. My exterminator told me he has 30 of them. He plans to can for the winter. That's a nifty idea. Reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House on the Prairie books. (I'm 23, but for some reason, I still love reading children's books. Probably because I want to become a published children's author one day).

Now onto a unrelated SFG topic. Since Cam and I are out of room in our square foot garden, I decided to pot a few plants.

I read that peppermint is a natural bug deterrent. The smell is too strong for them. I read in an article that if you plant peppermint in your garden, nasty bugs will stay away. But the roots of the peppermint plant can go crazy and spread like wildfire. So this is the reason I've decided to pot this.


We bought the peppermint a few weeks ago, but I just never got around to potting it. I've never potted anything before, so we chose to use the Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Mix. I have no idea how effective it is, but it's worth a shot.




Below: A picture of the peppermint after it was potted. I might cut a few sprigs off and dry some of the leaves.


We also potted a stevia plant. Cam really loves stevia. For anyone who has no clue what stevia is: Stevia is a natural sweetener. Its is 300 times sweeter than sugar. It's widely used in Japan as a sugar substitute. I believe it's 40-50 percent of the sweetener market over there, but I don't know the exact number. You can buy stevia extract at health stores in the US. It's normally in the dietary supplement aisles by the vitamins.

I'm not a huge fan of it because I love sugar too much. But it is definitely better for than all the artificial sweeteners out there.

Below: the potted Stevia plant.


Finally: another picture of the potted strawberry plant.