Growing and Harvesting

Well the past few days have been very exciting for my garden, as far as product wise. As I walked around my deck the other day, I noticed the first of my tomatoes had ripened and decided to take it off before bugs and animals tried to get to it. Although it isn't the largest tomato, it still is a very nice sized one for being grown at home. I'm not sure what we plan to do with this little tomato but if we need a fresh tomato for a recipe we have one nice and ready.

In addition to having this tomato ripe, as well as a few other tomatoes close to ripening, while I was walking around our deck I noticed our pepper plant is beginning to form tiny little green peppers. as of now they are a little bigger than an average thumb nail.
In the same planter, I have parsley which just recently began to flower and, apparently, the flowers attract butterflies, bumble bees and many beneficial insects, such as predatory wasps. My only concern is that the wasps will begin nesting at our house, as oppose to living in the forests near by. Most people will clip the flowers in order to have the leaves stay fresh but if you are like me and decide to keep the flowers you can use the fruit to make the spice coriander.
As I continued to walk and water my different plants, I was pleased to see that in a very small planter I'm using, my stevia plant has began to sprout and leaf out. Although the leaves are very small for right now, I am very excited that they came out so quickly and can't wait for the leaves to be large enough to use as a natural calorie free sweetener. When the individual sprouts each get large enough, I also plan on transferring them into individual larger plants, as this plant is a perennial and as long as we can keep it warm, it will do alright. The only problem I've read about this plant is the initial germination as well as not being very cold hardy here. The germination didn't seem to be that large of a problem for me so I think I'll be able to keep them nice and warm in our sunroom during the cold months.
As I continued watering, I decided to check the side of our house to see how the blackberries were going and I'm proud to say we have our first ripe blackberries. I snatched a few of them yesterday and one today and they are the perfect taste and ripeness.
As for the other plants I am growing they all seem to be doing pretty well. The honey locust on the deck are growing nice and big and already forming a slight canopy. Pretty soon I think I'll have to either plant them in the yard or transplant them into larger planters so their roots can take off. The bluebeard for a while wasn't looking too good but it seemed to recover, having its leaves nice and firm instead of drooping. The sweetspire is starting to grow vertically as well. I think the only plant that isn't doing so well is the river birch I got last week, which is in the shade.