How Does Your Garden Grow?

I meant to do a garden post last week and when I put it off- the garden kept growing!  So much so, the photos were drastically outdated.

Then:

Now:

Then:

Now:

Then:

Now:

What a difference a week makes!  The tomatoes must have grown twice as big.  And I KNOW the corn and potatoes did!







We have harvested the disappointing crops of broccoli and cauliflower and, of course, the NOT disappointing crop of basil.  I don't know what happened with the cauliflower and broccoli.  Too much water?  Too much heat?  Different variety?  I have never grown cauliflower myself, but I HAVE grown broccoli and compared to last years' GORGEOUS heads, the crop this year is more like florets.  And in my waiting (to no avail) for them to get huge and heady, they began to mature and flower.



This was the best I got.  Poo.



And another disappointment:

Last weeks' cabbage:

Now:

Not sure if I can get them to perk up or not.  As of right now, I can only expect one nice head of cabbage. What a bummer!  :-(





But on the UP side~ We have bean flowers and squash flowers and actual, bonafide peppers!



Andrew called me out to the garden excitedly to show me a teeny, tiny pinsized baby green bean that had him over the moon.  Whenever we go ANY place, the first thing he does when he gets out of the car, is check to see what is new in the garden.  The same goes for the first thing in the morning, the first thing after quiet time in the afternoon and right before bed.  I do not exaggerate when I say he checks the garden four or five times a day.  The boy is crazy.  (I love it.)

Don't look now!  There is a cyclops in the corn!

Still not QUITE done with the hay mulch.  What a difference it makes though, huh?

Speaking of weeds, these are the weeds we pick most from the garden:



Tomato plants!  From last years' tilled up tomatoes.  Andrew thinks it is great fun to make tomato 'bouquets' for the chickens.  I don't mind it a bit- there is nothing like the scent of a rubbed tomato plant.  Weeding tomato plants is a treat for your senses.

In case you are wondering what is IN this garden o' mine and because I wasted WAY to much time doing this- I post the GARDEN PLAN.  Everything I planted in a horribly florescent, tacky, unskilled computer depiction.  Of course, without the weeds.  (In THAT way, it is quite beautiful.)



This is my second garden patch:



On the far left (and out of the frame) is the asparagus bed...it is in desperate need of hay mulch.  On the far right is the pumpkin patch.  And in between them both is a good old fashioned smattering of sunflowers and (more!) zinnias.  I anticipate many a bouquet this summer.

I might as well include the strawberry patch while I am at it-



The children were perhaps too eager when going to harvest, since most harvests were enough to fill a hand, not a pail.  You know what is worse?  I never got strawberry picking this year- which means no homemade jam.  (For shame!)



As the keen observer might have noticed in my last few posts and pictures, Judah's new 'thing' is to plop down where ever he sees me pointing my camera.  Perhaps he thinks I am trying to take a picture of him and he is just making it easy for me?  Perhaps he thinks a picture is only worth taking if he is in it.  Either way, I think it is just downright cute.

How does your garden grow?