I've got a monster on my hands!

  For months I bemoaned the fact that my tomato plants looked a tad wimpy.  They were green enough but had thin stalks and no blooms.  My brother informed me that I needed to "hill" them and then they would grow.  Hill them, I did.  Grow, they did.  Now that the tomato plants decided to have this massive growth spurt, there is no room in the garden for anything else.  The squash were the first to go.  The tomato plants literally shaded the squash plants so much that they soon died from lack of sunshine.  Ok, so I can do without squash, I thought. I can always plant more squash in early fall.  I was just happy to see the tomato plants growing and finally setting tomatoes.  A couple of weeks later, the green beans were totally engulfed in the wayward tomato bushes.  By now, the goofy things had outgrown their cages, flopped to the ground and then kept going.  If I was to stand one as tall as it would reach, it most likely would be well over ten feet tall!  AND the plants are still growing.....and growing.  

  Today when I went to the garden, a new disaster!  My bell peppers were missing and the cucumber arch was not covered with cucumber vines! Where are my plants?  First, I investigated the cucumber arch.  This is something that my son, Michael, had devised to raise the plants up off of the ground. Since I am gardening in a tiny space, we thought it necessary to go vertical with some plants.  He rigged some rabbit wire into an archway that spanned the path.  Just this past week, I had remarked about how well the cucumbers were covering the arch!  In my mind, I had already pictured myself picking cucumbers from above my head! Nope...they are gone. Kaput!  Out of here!  In place of the once thriving cucumber vines....you guessed it, tomatoes.  Grrr...this was beginning to be slightly aggravating!  On to the pepper patch.  This is the first year that I planted peppers in containers.  The homemade cedar boxes really impressed me!  Plants were doing so well.  My peppers had nice thick stalks and were dark green in color.  Blossoms were covering the plants. Ok, now where are my pepper plants?  I tugged on an overhanging tomato and soon discovered that the pepper plants were being housed beneath the massive tomato plants.  They still had blooms and looked determined to survive!  Hopefully they will!

  At least one good thing is coming from the boundlessness of tomato growth.  I have been able to make and can a good many jars of sauce for the coming winter. The shelves are being replenished with all sorts of tomato goodness!  Pint after pint, quart after quart of sauce is being canned!  Where I had planned on having a variety of things in jars, the shelves are looking like they might just hold sauce...lots and lots of sauce!