June garden update on terrace tomatoes and basil

Is it June already? For me this year goes both slow and fast somehow. It goes really fast when I realise that it’s already June, but at the same time it goes really slow as I try to do more things more consciously this year. Now when I look back I realise so much has happened compared to the month before or the year before.  And not only in the garden. But let’s look at the garden today. More specifically I’ll show you the terrace. The garden by now is growing so vividly, that updates will have to be cut up in pieces.

We have a covered terrace on all sides of the house and on the east and south sides of the house I have placed about twenty to twenty-five tomato plants in small pots and old detergent jugs. Next to those I have placed a few flower pots and a few pots of basil. We have more things growing on the terrace, but this week I want to give you a quick update on the tomatoes and basil, as I think that the tomatoes are close to harvest time, so that’s exciting. Some are turning yellow, so red must be their next stage.

This week I finally put up some sticks in the pots and set up some yarn to keep the tomatoes up. I only did one side of the terrace now, but it looks really good, so I’ll be doing the other part next week when the weather turns a bit colder.

As you can see on some of the pictures, the basil in pots is really doing great. We have harvested from it a few times as well. The same basil that I placed in the garden is far from perfect. So what I learned this year is that basil really grows much better in pots than in open soil. For me at least.

The tomatoes in pots are also growing much better now. I know from last year that that will change during the year. Now they are profiting from the heat and shelter of the house. As summer progresses, the garden will get even hotter and there will be less rain, so they will definitely catch up. We will use the tomatoes on the terrace and the green house as early tomatoes, and the ones in the garden as later ones.

You might be wondering how I take care of the tomatoes and basil. I water the tomatoes ever two or three days and they are placed on plate which holds some extra water so that they can still have some water during days that I don’t water them. I water the basil almost daily now. They like to be watered and as they are on the terrace it’s quite easy to do. I just use our water barrel and give them as much water as they want. I have written a post earlier on how to take care for your basil plant here.

The water barrel is really nice by the way. We have only used the hose twice this year. Which is extraordinary, as it’s already really warm up here. We were able to water everything up till now with rainwater. We are hoping that it will keep on raining at least once every two weeks so that we can keep the terrace plants wet with rainwater throughout the whole year.

All together now we have 100+ tomato plants in both the garden and the terrace and I think they have about 150 tomatoes hanging on them. Waaaah. I’m thinking tomato sauce! Barrels of tomato sauce. And rainbow coloured tomato salads. Twice a day. Yum. What’s your favourite use of tomatoes?