Bumper Crop

This year's garden is really turning out nicely, here's the latest report as of July16th.  I've had very few complete failures this year, with the exception of the pepper plant everything is right on track. We even have some volunteers sprouting up.  As things started to take root and grow I started to notice an influx of something I didn't plant.  It was easy to spot since I planted mostly from starts so I knew what was located in each area.  I just started pulling these volunteers thinking they were weeds but they were all over especially at the far end of the garden.  I was a bit surprised when I thought they were weeds because Matt built me this garden last year and he brought in fresh dirt and then enhanced it for me this year with some really good soil.  I didn't get all of the "weeds" out of the garden and what should I discover they were but tomato plants. I really hadn't given much thought to the number of sun gold cherry tomatoes that fell down from my plants last year but it seems the tomato plants are really able to grow from their fallen fruit.  I'm leaving a few to see how they turn out.  They are not nearly as big as my intended tomato plants but we'll see if any of them produce.

Here's what we're eating currently:
- Chives
- Rosemary
- Lettuce (all plants have been eaten / removed as they started to go to seed)
- Radishes (all gone, these will go on our list to plant more for next year)
- Peas - we are getting enough to have peas with dinner a couple nights a week if they aren't eaten as snacks in the yard
- Broccoli - I was very mindful of these plants this year, I don't want them to bolt on me again
- Cauliflower - the heads are very small, I need to research if I should let them grow bigger but I'm scared of things bolting so we ate it when it was the size of a small fist.  It's a variety called cheddar cheese and is quite good and luckily doesn't really taste like cheese, it just has a bright orange / yellow color.  I will get a picture of this soon.

The zucchini plant is flowering and has several small squashes starting. I can't wait to see how many we get.  Overall everything is thriving and it's looking like a great year for the garden.  I'm eagerly waiting on the brussels sprouts to start producing so I can see how those turn out.  Not my favorite veggie but I thought it looked interesting and at least I know Grandma Z will eat them.

I have lots of green sun gold tomatoes on the vine and am watching every day for them to grow bigger.  I love sun golds and can't wait for them to be ready in August. 

Here is the end of the garden with the peas, sweet peas, herbs, carrots, cabbage and the volunteer tomatoes.

My giant cabbage plant, I had no ideas this would grow this big!  It was another of my whimsical purchases at the nursery.  It just sounded fun and now it looks like we'll be enjoying a few heads of cabbage at some point.

Another success from outside the vegetable garden, one of my hydrangea plants located right outside the backdoor.  This was a small gallon sized plant when it went in this location and it was flowering pink when it was planted.  It was dormant in terms of flowers for several years while it did grow in size.  Last year I had a handful of flowers but this year it is covered with beautiful flowers ready to bloom.  The flowers are mainly white with a few pink flecks to remember it's heritage.