everything's coming up tomatoes

This cheery Aster and a few of his Aster friends are out in full bloom following some rain that visited us last night and this morning. A very nice sight for a somewhat gloomy day. The sun is trying to peek out now and is slowly pushing away the grey clouds, making way for big, white, fluffy ones.

I took a quick walk around the yard when I got home from work and saw that it was time for a check-in with my hardy chipmunk-sown (I'm guessing) tomato plant. The one that is growing right against my house out of a crack in my brick patio. The one who only receives a few hours of sunlight on a good day not a whole lot of water from what I can tell.

It first looked like this

And then this

And now, today, it looks like this. There are branches extending behind the patio chair and out in front of the little greenhouse too. Ignore the weeds in these photos.

It is absolutely loaded with green cherry tomatoes and there are nearly as many flowers still as there are tomatoes.

There are a couple just starting to get a slight blush on them. I'm going to have to figure out what to do with a million cherry tomatoes though. Can them, maybe?

Around the rest of the vegetable gardens my canteloupe is still growing slowly and I noticed today that it looks like it's starting to get a few faint surface bumps that will be the webbing. My Dragon Tongue beans are still growing and it's all I can do not to pick them and eat them raw; I'm trying to let the remaining ones grow so I can pick them for seed to use next year. The herbs are still hanging on, the peas and wax beans need to be pulled out, the corn isn't going to amount to anything but I did notice a few silks sticking out of  some of the stalks earlier today.

The Lemon Boy tomatoes are just starting to change colour and I enjoyed the one on the left, sun-warmed and eaten like an apple, when I got home from work this afternoon.

The hot banana peppers are ready for picking and some are starting to turn red. My boyfriend is going to try pickling them.

With each year that I plant a garden (this is my third), I learn new things and figure out what I'll do the next year. I plan to do more patio plants, putting my peppers and herbs in pots, and to plant less things just more of them. This growing season is nearing an end but next year's is only a winter off.