Home Grown Goodness

I have really big news to share... Mark and I planted a garden and finally have something to show for it!

Yep...real vegatables.  We have cucumbers, acorn squash, lots of jalepenos, bell peppers, roma tomatos and cherry tomatos.  I guess you could say I am a proud mother.  I even took pictures :)

Here is our solo squash and I really hoping we get more.  There are lots of flowers so I am hoping that means at least a few more squash for us!  It is by far the biggest plant in our little patch, but it probably should be because this is also one of the only original plants left after Mark's "accident". 

Let me explain.  Mark and I planted the garden just one short week before I left for my France adventures. It was a really big step for us and a really big under taking for Marko, but he never has food at his house and I love fresh veggies from the garden.  Plus, I knew I was going to want something to do at his house all summer!  So, I left all those fragile plants in his care and made him promise he would water it every day, weed and most importantly not kill anything. 

To make a long story short, he killed nearly everything in the month.  How?  Well, it's really so Mark.

Mark grew up on a very large crop farm, his family raises over 2500 acres of corn and soybeans each year and every spring and summer his Dad heads out and does his spraying to either kill the weeds or fertilize the fields.  To them, and most farmers, this is the most economical way to produce their crops.  And truly their system works well.  Well, my boy Mark decided to apply that same system to our little 6 foot by 6 foot garden. 

He started commenting that the garden wasn't growing very fast (he has no patience) and decided to take it into his own hands and help along Mother Nature.  I mean I understand his thought process "If that fertilizer worked on the field corn, why wouldn't it work on our squash and tomotoes?"  Well, it probably would have worked except he applied it a little too heavy.

Needless to say, our fresh-grown veggies are not "organic" and got a little bit of a late start, but the garden looked as good as new (and 80 percent was) when I returned!   Despite the little setback, Mark did a great job keeping up the garden when I was gone and now we are about to have delicious food to enjoy!  Here is some more pictures...

My favorite: cherry tomatoes.  It's so hard to wait for these little guys to turn red....are there any tricks to help them along?  I don't think we are going to have any even make it to the house!

Now, you have to look closely to see the green peppers.  We only have a few of them coming in, but honestly, that's okay because I don't know what to do with them anyways.  Any advice?

Now on the other hand, the jalepenos are growing like wild!  I am so excited to try the stuffed jalepenos my Texas friends suggested to me! I hope they are good because the only other thing I know what to do with jalepenos is make salsa.  Next year, we are going to have to be a little smarter with our plant choices.  :)

And speaking of next year, we already have BIG things in mind.  For a boy who wanted me to plant my vegatables around the flag pole, he really has taken to the gardening.  However, next year is a long way away and until then we will patiently wait for our cucumbers to get fatter and our tomatoes to turn red!  Fresh veggies from the garden are the best...even if they aren't organic :)