May 9, 2009 More Plants From the Market

Today was the second week of the Grower's Market in West Chester. We got there a little later in the day this time so the selection was a little weak. But I was able to find some of the items I was looking for. I left with:

• 4 Cantaloupes
• 2 Purple Peppers
• 1 Sweet Banana Pepper
• 1 Luigi Pepper (They look like Frying Peppers, but have no heat)
• 1 Lemon Boy Tomato (large all yellow)
• 1 Mr Stripey Tomato (also large yellow but with stripes)
• 1 Super Sweet Cherry Tomato
• 3 Eggplants (American this time)
• 1 Rosemary Plant
  
• 1 Marjoram plant
• 1 Sage Plant
  

All I'm missing now are 2 more Plum Tomatoes, 1 Cherry Tomato, and a few more Pepper plants. I was especially disappointed that no vendor had any hot peppers today. I was promised by one of the farmers that next week there will be six varieties of hot peppers to choose from- and that's just one stand! I plan on getting a Jalapeno, a Hungarian Wax as they are spicy but still edible. I'm toying with planting a Habanero, but I'm not sure that I'll ever eat a single one! I like to keep my peppers at 100,000 or less... Here's a chart. I'm open to suggestions, but I guess I'll see what else they have there next week.




I think I'm also now set up with the herbs I want to grow this year. I have now 2 basil plants, 1 Thyme, 1 Oregano, 1 Cilantro, 1 Tarragon, 1 Rosemary, 1 Sage, and 1 Marjoram. I have everything but the Basil and Rosemary in two long planters. It's the same set up as the previous two years and it's worked well. The closer they are to the kitchen the better!

All the plants are now in, and my hands are sore from all the additional yard work. Place looks great though! (Thanks Stacey for mowing the path!)

I also had decide to change out the tomato cages for large wooden stakes. The cages I had were only three feet tall and I'm hoping the tomatoes get a little larger than that. It was the best I could do when I was growing them in pots on the roof of my old apartment, but not now. So I pounded in some stakes and reused the tomato cage for the bush beans. I took the larger, more sturdy three-sided tomato cage and used that for the cantaloupes.

Here are the Loupes and Eggplant:

And the Peas are climbing!