[KarenBoo]

We ate our first cherry tomato from our first garden today!!

We bought a Garden Tower back in March and got some nursery starts. The squash all died. The peppers are fine, but don't seem to be growing. The eggplants are flowering. The cherry tomatoes are doing great! I just had to get creative with the tomato stakes - I had to put them on top of my Garden Tower, then thread twine under the branches and tie that to the stakes at the top. I learned that tomatoes are supposed to be planted at the top!

Oh and we have several herbs doing nicely, and we planted cilantro seeds that just sprouted.

I had never planted a garden in our yard before because it is watered with reclaimed water, so I viewed that as completely toxic. (And I wouldn't plant anything in our ground either for the same reason.) So we turned off one section of the sprinkler system so we could start the garden. This weekend, a friend suggested that we have the reclaimed water tested and that it was likely as clean as potable water. I don't know...but it's a good idea to get it tested. It would be so nice not to have to container garden absolutely everything.

Other "issue" is that our back yard is almost completely shaded. We have one small spot that is sunny a lot, and that's where we put the Garden Tower. But also, I believe that in FL, some shade works fine because the sun gets too hot here. So, we'll have to experiment.