So a couple of weeks ago I introduced you all to our little garden on our back patio. I was a little skeptical as to how it would turn out, beyond our herbs, since we were growing veggies in a converted Weber grill. And who knows what the remnants of long ago burned charcoal could do to vegetables…

Well, I was pleasantly surprised when we returned from a week away to find the plants not only still alive (thanks I’m sure, to our champion waterer Tony) but HUGE. So big in fact, that we had to pick up some fun stakes at the Farmer’s Market the next day. So let’s take a look at what we have here:

First up, tomatoes. I am really, really impressed with how our tomato plant is doing. When we left, we had a couple of teeny tiny tomatoes. Now our tomatoes are nearly full sized, but not yet ripening. I’m hoping they will be bright red by the time I come back from Europe next week, and ready for pairing with some excellent locally made mozzarella!

And the best thing about the tomato plant? Look at all those buds and little tomatoes it’s continuing to make! We might well have tomatoes all summer off this thing *fingers crossed* which would be a near back patio miracle.

Our pepper plant, which I’m sad to report is not doing quite as well as our tomato plant. We bought two pepper plants, and so far, we’re only seeing one pepper. Before we left for the beach, there were several little buds that looked like they had promising potential as peppers, but they seemed to have vanished. The one pepper we do have is getting to be a decent size, but I just hope the plants start to produce something else–but we can only wait and see.

I’ll update again once we get a little closer to harvest!

This is the first of what I hope to be a recurring series on urban gardening. I love the idea of growing my own vegetables, but as you might expect of a house that is only 990 square feet, we don’t really have much of a yard. But we do have a back slab, which we’re trying to get the most of.

The challenge of growing on our slab has always been the rats. Yes it’s gross to talk about, but part of the reality of life in the city is rats. Although our rat population seems to be way down recently thanks to some helpful alley cats, we still need to keep things off the ground in case they show up again. So how do we grow? Well it’s been an exercise in experimenting with hanging planters and planters off the ground, mostly with mixed results.

Last year, we did a little bit of herb growing in pots, and we experimented with a hybrid tomato plant in a big hanging basked. This year we decided to be a little bit more adventuresome, mainly due to Noel’s desire to have home grown “real” tomatoes and peppers.

So more on this year. We of course decided to replant our herbs that hadn’t made it through the winter (the rosemary and the oregano made it outside all winter!) Here’s a look at our hanging herb basket on the specially made hanger pole (which was the best thing about wine in the woods last year–finding the pot hanger).

Noel decided to experiment with growing peppers and tomatoes in an old weber kettle grill that we weren’t using anymore. I was skeptical at first, but it looks like the plants are doing okay so far!

And here’s the most exciting part! Yesterday when we were outside watering, I noticed the little flowers had started to turn into vegetables! I was nearly squealing with delight.

Baby tomatoes! Hopefully they’ll keep growing!

And of course, I still have flowers. These petunias were two flats for $10 at the Baltimore Farmer’s Market, and they’ve really taken off!

Stay tuned to see how our plants survive the summer, and most importantly, to see if they’re still alive after our trip to the beach next week!