The results of Edible Alley have far and away exceeded my expectations!

This is what it looks like if you’re sitting on the southwest corner, just outside of it! Now it’s surrounded on all sides with flowers, but inside, it’s just as lush and green.

The Snap Peas and Tenderbeans are coming non-stop. I harvest at least this much every couple days.

And I’m bringing in at least two decent-sized cucumbers every other day. Before I headed to Mom’s, I took four of them, sliced them up and put them in some cider vinegar in a large pickling jar for Dad.

The new strawberry plants are doing well. The critters beat me to them about 70 percent of the time, but I did manage a nice little haul for myself the other day. I don’t bother with any sort of protection for them. I just munch them when I see them ripe enough.

My squash tripled in size while I was gone, and there are several flower. I have to get out there and tie this one up the ladder so it can start growing vertically. So far, I seem to have kept that Borer Beetle at bay.

The garlic seems to be a bust – though the leaves started to yellow, the bulbs I dug up were no bigger than the cloves I planted. That’s okay – we’ll plant some this fall, and see if we make out better with that.

The carrots beside them seem to be doing well. We are still well off from a carrot harvest of any type though.

The chives are growing slowly, but they are growing. I suspect next year that the pot will be nice and full. Same with the catnip. There are some robust little sprouts in there now.

But the real success story…

Is my INSANE tomato plant. There are actually two plants there. On the left, you can just see the cage surrounding one plant… but on the right…. well that monster is just taking over!!! It’s almost as tall as me (I’m 5’7″). That box it’s in is 3′ x 3′. And it’s almost taken over the whole thing. It’s planted in the left corner, but the plant almost completely fills the box!!!! The poor asparagus are almost completely shadowed.

I’ve grown some robust tomato plants in my time… but never one this quite robust. But I have one small complaint…

Those AREN’T Grape tomatoes. I don’t eat tomatoes. Dave does, but he can’t eat too many, because the acid bothers him. I like to stick to cherry tomatoes because he can happily snack on them without too much trouble.

The garden centre was out of cherry tomatoes when I went this year, but I though grape tomatoes would be the next best thing. But it appears my specimen was mislabeled!

No idea what they are or how big they will get. But one thing is for sure – I’m going to need to find lots of people to share them with – because this plant is COVERED in them!