First Pick

June 8th we got our first pickings of the season!

One view of the garden, with Christian for scale.

Another view of the garden.

That first day we got two purple peppers (yes, purple - they are bell peppers), some little green bell peppers, a cucumber, and a zucchini.  The next day we got a yellow squash.  And since then we've had tons more zucchini and yellow squash.  There have been a couple of tiny Sunsugar cherry tomatoes, which Christian ate and liked!  We've had at least one more cucumber, and there are more on the vines.  Robert's pumpkin plants are getting really, really big!  We have tons of green tomatoes, and I can't wait until they start turning red.  I'm sure we'll be swamped with tomatoes, although my Dad assures me that he/we will be able to eat them all.  (I'm not convinced.  Anyone in the are want tomatoes when they are ready?)  I'm hopeful that Christian will eat the grape tomatoes, too, although I doubt he'll eat much in the way of regular tomatoes.  I've got at least 3 eggplants coming on, and I'm excited for that.  I could almost make Ratatouille completely off of my own produce - tomatoes, green peppers, zucchini, and eggplant; I just need onions.  How cool!  Because we're starting to get a bunch of things I stopped taking pictures of each time I picked something.  Two days ago I picked 3 zucchini, 3 yellow squash, a cucumber, and another purple pepper.  Yum.

Tonight I'm going to make a bunch of pesto from the basil that is growing.  Whoo-hoo!

Oh, one big set back:  I almost cried when a few weeks ago I came outside to the garden to see that Bambi ate all the leaves off of my strawberry plants!  I was devastated.  They were just leveled!  My hopes for having any strawberries this year were just dashed.  Robert was more optimistic and there have been new leaves and even flowers on them.  So if we can keep Bambi (and/or his friends) away, I might get some strawberries this year.  

While I'm keeping track of foes to my garden...we had gophers toward the beginning of the summer.  Robert and his dad were able to take care of them with a few gopher bombs, though.  The gopher holes weren't in the garden furrows or beds, but they were about 10 feet from my tomato plants, so they had to go.  

We are unsure if we will be here next year, so we've tried to really make a serious attempt at a good garden this one year.  If it continues to work and we end up leaving, maybe my parents will keep it up in years to come.  We'll see.