In this week’s update, we’ve been noticing tomato plants popping up in a bed where we didn’t plant them this year. We’ve also had great growth in our cucumbers and intentionally planted tomatoes and now have blossoms on them. Still, one vegetable that isn’t growing as well as we’d like is pepper. But with a heat wave on the horizon, that may change this week. Finally, I expanded our trellises to accommodate the pole beans we’re growing. Let’s dive in.

Rogue Tomato Plants

Something pretty bizarre and funny is happening in our garden this year: we’ve had close to a dozen tomato plants germinate that we didn’t plant. The bed they’re appearing in is where we grew tomatoes last year; however, this year, we’re growing cucumbers, molokhia, and melons in it. I’m pretty certain what happened is that seeds germinated from tomatoes that fell off the plants last year, but it’s still pretty crazy. We had a really cold winter last year, so I’m surprised that the seeds survived. I also tilled the soil this spring, but that may have brought the seeds closer to the surface and helped with germination.

I know that we could have pulled them immediately, but for the most part, they aren’t growing in places where they’ll hinder the growth of our melons, molokhia, and cucumbers, so we’ve let them go. The funny part is not knowing what varieties they are. There appear to be at least three varieties, but until they grow more and start producing fruit, we won’t know what they are. At this point, we’re committed to letting them grow to maturity unless they start to affect the plants we planted this year. The best case is that we have extra tomatoes. The worst case is that they never produce fruit or we have to pull them. It’s a fun journey.

Plants Are Blossoming

Elsewhere in the garden, some of the plants we intentionally planted have started to put on blossoms. Three of our cucumber plants (the fourth one died) are flowering and have teeny-tiny cucumbers growing behind the flowers. Several of our tomato varieties have blossoms on them, including Large Red, Roma, Heinz, Sub Arctic Plenty, and Little Bing. Also, our first batch of Iroquois Skunk Pole beans is putting on flowers.

This is very exciting, because I don’t think there are many better things in life than a tomato eaten fresh off the plant. And because of how our pole beans are growing, we should be done harvesting beans from the first batch by the time the other two batches are reaching maturity. I think this is the part of gardening that’s the most fun.

Expanding Our Trellises

Because two of the final three batches of pole beans are starting to take off, I had to adapt and expand the trellises I built from old Ikea furniture. If you recall, these three planters were originally used for other things: Sour Mexican Gherkin cucumbers, Cherokee Trail of Tears beans, and Grandma Nellie’s Mushroom beans. None of these were successful, so I started Iroquois Skunk Pole beans in all three. These trellises have gotten weird.

On one of them, I took the other side from one of the Ikea chairs, cut it down, and used the curved pieces in opposite directions to get the height where it needed to be. I then used a scrap piece of lumber for stability, added a piece to hold the twine, and tied the twine.

For the other trellis, I attached two pieces of scrap lumber that was in our garage when we bought our house to the existing planter. That got it to the necessary height. I then used a couple of scraps to strengthen the trellis and tied the twine. Both are ready for the plants to climb.

Upcoming Heatwave

This week, a large portion of the Eastern United States, us included, is under some sort of a heat advisory. Starting tomorrow (Tuesday), through Friday, the high is supposed to be in the mid-to-upper 90s. This is both good and bad. It’s bad because when it’s that hot and humid, being outside isn’t fun. It’s good because our soil needs to dry out a bit, which will benefit our plants. Our pepper plants are looking pretty healthy, but they’re still small because it hasn’t been overly warm to this point. The heat, humidity, and sunlight should go a long way to addressing this problem. My hope is that because of how much rain we’ve gotten, we’ll only need to water once during the heatwave, if at all.

Up Next

If you’re in an area that’s going to face this heatwave, please stay safe. Drink lots of water, and stay in the shade as much as possible. For your garden, I hope the heat benefits yours as much as we’re hoping it benefits ours. Also, have you ever had rogue plants pop up in garden beds where they don’t belong? Happy gardening!