July garden update

Apparently I was so tickled with the unicorn card I posted last week that I completely forgot to do another post for the week. Oops! I'll try to remember to do three this week to make up for it. Today I have a quick garden update and a few pictures.

As usual, the cucumbers are growing like crazy, which never ceases to amaze me. See all the little yellow buds on the plants? This guy was our first harvest of the season and a delicious addition to a salad with last night's dinner.

Clearly, though, the second cucumber plant doesn't want to be outdone. It's got four cucumbers coming in that are all about the same size (sorry they're a little hard to see in this photo). Looks like I'll be making a cucumber salad soon.

On a somewhat-related-but-still-kind-of-random note, do you ever wonder about the people who first ate fruits or vegetables? I mean, I know it was so long ago it's hard to comprehend, but who was the brave soul who saw something hanging from a plant, thought, "Oh, that looks tasty. I could really go for a snack right about now," then picked it and ate it? There had to have been some unfortunate choices along the way, right?

And back to the garden! We have little tomatoes growing on one of the tomato plants ...

... and flowers just starting on the other one. I think this plant is the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye variety, so the fruit should be pretty. I love tomatoes that aren't plain solid red. Those are good tomatoes, too, don't get me wrong. But there are just so many other varieties that most people never see.

Another aside: I was walking home from the bus stop after work today and went past a garden with tomatoes that had to have been the size of a small melon. They were huge! We've harvested some big tomatoes, but nothing quite like that.

The zucchini (above) is doing quite nicely, as is the yellow squash (below).

And just for fun, here is the elephant ear plant we put in the planter box along with my little gnome family. Something -- squirrels or chipmunks or some such critter -- likes to dig in this planter, and I often come out to discover gnomes and their accessories strewn about and/or covered with dirt. The gnomes are good sports about it, though, and never complain.

Thanks for stopping by!