Herb Garden & More

I made a 3-tiered herb garden from galvanized metal tubs/buckets from Tractor Supply Co. 

The bottom is a 16.75 gallon tub, the middle is a 4.5 gallon bucket, and the top is a 2 quart bucket. I drilled holes in the bottoms for drainage. 
 

Each level is set up on the backside of the container below...

Too lazy/busy to bother scraping off all the stickers, which were stuck on very well.

I have it about half planted w/ moisture-loving herbs/plants including: African Blue Basil, Curly & Flat-leaf Parsley, Chives, Calendula, and hopefully a few short Teddy Bear Sunflowers will come up from seed.  I'm hoping to get more basils soon, and one may be the "feature" plant on the top tier. Or I may find something else to put there.

I also bought another (non-variegated) lemon thyme and added it to the raised dry-loving herb garden.  It has rained a lot over the past 36 hours, so they're probably getting too much water.  The potting soil I used for them is much sandier though, so it should also dry out quicker.

I started some marigold and zinnia seeds today.  The marigold seeds came for free in the mail as part of some insurance company's self-promotion.  Very thoughtful, but no thanks on the insurance, haha!

Native Nurseries has so many different tomato varieties in right now, as well as peppers, eggplants, squash, etc.  I bought some peppers (Poblano, Jalapeno, Serrano, Ace sweet bell) and two eggplants (Rosa Bianca, Listada de Gandia) since my Rosa Bianca seeds failed. That means I need to get my raised beds cleaned out and a bit of soil added again very soon.  Tractor Supply has straw bales, so I may try adding some straw mulch and see if that helps the raised bed plants.

The first tomato to bloom is the Black Prince.  It's supposed to be an earlier variety, so I'm letting it go ahead.  Both it and the Cherokee Purple have grown quite a bit since I got them and can go ahead and get to fruiting.  The Berkeley Tie Dye has also grown but was much smaller when I bought it.  I also have the tomatoes I grew from seed (Black Cherry, Paul Robeson, Jaune Flamme), and I'd like to keep two of each.

The pansies and violas are going through another bloom, but they are about played out w/ the hot weather we've had.  I'll probably trade them out for petunias or something similar in another week or two.