July 4th update

Today I noticed a few of the strawberry plants are starting to wake up and grow some green leaves which is pretty fast since I only planted them 2 days ago.  Today I got some worms for the tower in the crates so now I have two towers to keep happy.  Luckily they like coffee grounds and egg shells.  Mind you, I will have no idea if they're not happy so I can live in blissful ignorance.

Also in the garden some of the potato sprouts are breaking the surface.  I need to watch the video I saw on them again, I think I wait until they are about 4-6 inches tall and then cover them with more soil so that they will grow potatoes up the whole bucket.

I also pulled up the spindly tomato plant that wasn't doing well and put 3 more healthy ones in, and dug up some of the pepper plants that don't seem to be growing, put them in pots and put the new healthy ones in the bed instead.    One tomato plant (I think the cherry) is doing well and is fruiting.  Next year I'm going to grow a bunch from seed I think.

I have a feeling this first year is going to be a steep learning curve.

Things I want to do:

Plant carrots (probably in a deep container)
Plant garlic
Figure out a rain barrel situation.  We have plenty of rain here especially with summer storms, but I need to see what kind of gutter system it going on because at the moment I end up with a moat all around my back porch, so ideally I want to collect all that, but it sounds like a big hassle to do it.  And that's without even making the rain barrel.