Garden Growth

First things first - Happy Father's Day, Dad. I love how alike and how different we are. Your love and devotion to your children and grandchildren is well known and so appreciated. You inspire me.

Now, back to the veggies. I thought this would be a good time to assess growth. The above photo is a view of the garden today (just a little over 2 months post planting). In the front left corner butternut squash is growing strong. To it's right are cukes and zukes, moving toward the back are tomatoes and peppers, then beans and finally corn. At the base of the two empty poles are my bush beans, which I of course thought were pole beans until they didn't climb the poles. duh.

The zucchini plant looks nice and healthy and has a few zukes growing - they are about 4 inches long but quite thin. Still more blossoms look promising. The hammock in the background is like a magnet to all who enter the garden area.

The tomatoes are finally turning red! The hot weather of the last couple days have made these sweet 100s happy. J. will find them in the morning and gobble them up quickly

Corn. I still don't know too much about it and really don't know when it's ready to harvest, but it looks like it's getting close. The silks are looking dryer and are shorter than they were a week ago, indicating.....something.....I don't know......I'll look that one up in my Western Garden book tomorrow.

Basket 'o beans. The bush beans are slowing down production but the pole beans (kentucky wonders) are prolific the last few days. Very crisp and sweet.

This is my second cucumber and it looks almost ready to pick. That's a bean laying beside it for size perspective. I'll give it another day or two before it ends up in the salad.

Above and below are butternut squash. They are supposed to take about 90 days to mature and we're about 2/3 of the way there. The squash above is about 3 time the size of the one below. I love butternut squash so I hope these guys turn out well.

All in all things are progressing. The bell pepper plant seems small (no photo), and I'm still not seeing much action around the other cucumber plant - very few flowers and no evidence of veggie growth.

I'm having issues with rollie pollies eating some of the plants and I'll talk about them next week.

What does one do with a basketful of berries after a day of picking? Make pocket pies. Yum.