I got a bit more carried away than I was initially planning. I got to thinking about what I wanted to grow, and my list just kept getting longer and longer. I know I want to grow some tomatoes since they did well for my mother. I planted some cherry tomatoes from seeds and better boy tomatoes from starter plants. I chose cucumbers because I wanted to make pickles. I love homemade pickles! I planted two larger cucumbers and one pickling cucumber plant I grew from seeds. I use peppers often for cooking, so I added some banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, and bell peppers near my cucumbers and tomatoes. The banana peppers are starter plants and the others I started from seeds. I added some buttercrunch lettuce behind the cucumbers to give them a bit of shade from the summer sun. We eat a lot of salads at my house and I wanted a new variety of lettuce to enjoy.

On the other side of my stairs, I originally planned to only plant flowers and herbs, but I ended up needing more room for my vegetables. Move over flowers! I planted six strawberry roots because we need some fruit in our lives. In front of them, I have herbs in 6-in pots that I think will outgrow these pots. The herbs I am trying to grow are basil, cilantro, thyme, parsley, and oregano. I bought an Italian seed pack on Amazon and started them very early in spring. I have some bush bean green beans, potatoes, onion, garlic, and carrots in grow bags here as well. 

Below is a picture of my Marigold, Cosmo, and Zinnia flowers. I replaced the Impatiens I had originally placed next to the stairs, with these. I started the Marigolds and Zinnias from seed back in February, not realizing how big they could get! When I finally read the seed packet and realized they could get taller than me, I decided to plant them next to the stairs under my kitchen window. I figured they would be nice to look at through the window and would attract pollinators to my vegetable garden.