How does your garden grow?

Sydney and her sunflower.

In March, my dad and brothers, Trav and Stirl, helped till the soil and turn in some organic material that was piled up on a small slope in our back yard. That was the start of our very first attempts to have our own garden. Zach guffawed at the whole of the experiment, but he did help with hoeing the rows. But to our delight and his surprise, we have been pretty successful. Early in the season we had a huge success with spinach. It was fun to say at dinner, "Hey honey can you go and pick some spinach? I feel like having a salad tonight." But then I let it go to seed. So I don't know if I could have made it last through the summer. Right now I am harvesting about four summer squash a week and using fresh herbs with meals. What a difference that makes! Zach got all masterpiece chef one night and battered and fried the squash, which was pretty dang tasty. I have yet to make bread, but that may happen this weekend. So I will let you know how it turns out. But my favorite right now, which just started ripening, is the tomatoes. Nothing beats a home grown tomato. Delicious. I just eat them all on their own. ( Maybe that will be my substitute for the cookies and dough that helped me add ten pounds to this months weight gain.)

These pictures were taken the beginning of July and the tomato plants in the back have about doubled in size. The little wire supports are doing a pretty poor job right now. And there was one squash that was almost as big as Eleanor. But did I get a picture? No, the camera battery was dead. So we've had success with spinach, red and butter leaf lettuce (but not as much as the spinach), summer squash, tomatoes, oregano, parsley, basil and chives. We have harvested a couple zucchini and there are some green peppers growing, though I thought I only bought red. Do they start out like tomatoes and ripen to a red later? There is a cantaloupe plant growing, but I think it is too late for it to start growing fruit now. It only has blossoms. That is the only plant from seed that transplanted successfully, though. We failed at growing cucumbers, carrots, radishes and peas. We hope to be more experienced farmers next season. So that is how our garden grows. (This blog is dedicated to the boys who started it all.)