Lesson: Always plant basil with tomatoes!

We recently visited a new plant nursery we’ve never been to before and it was lovely!

We picked up lots of tomato and pepper plants and got some seed packets to start getting ready for the Fall garden. The season is approaching quickly and it’s already time to plant some things like brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and beans.

The tomato varieties I’m growing are Mr. Stripey, Red Cherry, Supersweet, Brandywine, San Marzano & Candyland.

The roly polies thoroughly enjoyed the new tomatoes we put in and most of them didn’t make it. Luckily, the nursery still had some tomato plants left and they were still on sale for $1 for a 4-pack, so I wasn’t *too* upset at the roly polies…

With the new tomato plants, I decided to plant basil at the base, because I pruned the bottoms of the tomato plants pretty heavily and I wanted to fill in the space.

The next morning, I came out to water and so my happy surprise-NO roly poly damage to the tomato plants! I will definitely be planting basil with all of my tomato transplants going forward. I was amazed!

The pepper varieties I’m growing are Jalapeño, Big Jim and Santa Fe Grande (hot) & Orange, Yellow and Chocolate Beauty (sweet).

This looks like it will be my first year successfully growing peppers to fruit! In the past 7 years of gardening I haven’t gotten a single pepper from the garden, whether the plants just didn’t survive or some critter came and took all of the fruit when it was small.

I can’t wait to make salsa with all of these tomatoes and peppers!

I made a short video of me tying up the tomatoes onto the arched trellis and showed off what all is growing in the garden right now. I hope you’ll watch and enjoy it!

See you soon, friend!

xo-Allison