How does your Garden Grow?

I picked my first heirloom tomatoes today. Yummy! I've been able to eat the cherry tomatoes for several weeks now and there are tons more ripening on the plant. So I think we can say the tomatoes were a success.

The local rabbits would tell you that the snow peas and green beans were a success as well. But, they would be wrong. These plants were mowed down by the bunnies the moment they reared their stems out of the soil. We kept trying to tell the rabbits that if they would allow the plants to grow just a little bit then there would be plenty for all of us. I really only wanted the vegetables off of one of each type of plant. I would have been happy to give the rabbits the rest. But it seems rabbits are an impatient breed. Who knew?

My pepper plants look like bonzai . They look perfectly healthy except that they never got bigger than about 8 inches and they never flowered. I guess they don't get enough sun. My leeks never took off either.

I have some very oddly shaped cucumbers and butternut squash growing. So we will see what comes of that in the next few weeks. And my herb garden has done really well. All except the cilantro that flowered while we were on vacation. I meant to see if I could get another plant but never quite got around to it. I thought the parsley was gone (also thanks to the resident bunnies) but even though it was down to stalk nubs with no leaves, it came back nicely. I have a huge crop of basil going that I am going to harvest and freeze so that I have it all winter. I'm thinking of digging up the rosemary and thyme and keeping them indoors this winter. I don't think the cats will bother them as they smell so strongly.

I had a few strawberries right at the beginning of the season. The plants have completely disappeared. I don't know if they will come back next year or not.

I had lots of lettuce but I never picked it. We had plenty of lettuce in our CSA box and so I never got around to it. Did you know that lettuce flowered? I'm not sure if that means new lettuce plants will grow up on their own or not. I need to get out there and pull them up. I have more seeds so I will plant them for a second harvest.

As for the flowers I planted ... the Dahlia plants are really healthy. They have no blooms but they are really healthy. Why don't they have any floweres? Well, because the rabbits like them. They ate the portaluca immediately. Every now and then they will allow a cosmo to bloom. The rabbits seem to have no interest whatsoever in the snapdragons. So I've had a great time with them. These last few thunderstorms have done their fair share of dammage though. My sunflowers never even sprouted (I think some critter ate the seeds in the ground. I'd blame the bunnies but they can't have done ALL of the damage. This one might be the fault of the squirrels). I got sprouts of sweetpeas, but they never blossomed, nor did they climb the fence as I hoped they would.

For those of you that don't know, this garden was my first Mother's Day present. Arlo, who absolutely HATES gardening, cleared out my patch of waist high weeds that were growing after the snow melt. Cleared it down to dirt. Weeds came out by their roots. Then he went to two different garden centers and helped me plant all of my pretties.

When I was recovering from my deep depressive episode a few years ago, one of the things I did each day was "inspect the troops." Each morning I took my coffee out in the morning and checked my garden for new growth. It really helped me. Arlo pictured me taking Sarah outside this summer in order to help me inspect the troops. We have been outside some this summer. But not as much as I thought.

I'm already planning next year's garden to be a bit more toddler friendly. We will plant a few square feet of sod so that there will be come grass to sit on. And we'll definitely have tomatoes.