Summer Garden

In an attempt to write about something other than my fascinating baby, I will now turn the discussion to gardening. The garden has been somewhat neglected for the sake of said baby—it's awfully mean to subject her to 90+ degree heat and hungry mosquitoes—but fortunately we're at the stage of garden growth where little is required of me. I am reminded why my backyard looks incredibly barren in the winter as our little patch of fruits looks amazingly like a jungle right now. One zucchinni plant is so enormous it can't even stand upright any longer and the cucumber vines are planning a garden coup d'etat; really, I fear for the safety of our beefy tomatoes. The first Romas were plucked yesterday. They don't look the greatest, as the "zipper" effect shows, but I'm sure they'll taste just fine. We've been enjoying fresh zucchini and cucumbers for a couple of weeks now. There's just nothing better than fresh cucumbers and Ranch dressing to accompany a meal.

In the foreground of the second photo you'll notice a sunflower… This one grew from some birdseed that fell to the ground. In the background you can see another one in the form of Jack's beanstalk. Last year I grew one of these gargantuan flowers; this year we have two. The bold cucumbers are attempting to overthrow Sunflower #1 as well. Sunflower #1 simply scoffs and continues to demonstrate his skyscraping abilities. We have yet to see the actual flower heads on these mammoths, but they'll show up before long.