Garden Update With Lots of Pictures

We had a family work day Saturday. That means we all go outside for a few hours and DH and I work while the DDs alternately play or "help" us. We actually got a lot done this weekend with DH mowing thoroughly (moving the play structure) and spraying weeds in the front and backyard. He also pulled major weeds that were growing in a terrace. I have been wanting to plant some bulbs there, but thought I shouldn't climb up to pull 4-foot weeds with my center of gravity messed up with pregnancy. I spent my work time in the garden picking, weeding, and planting. I'm hoping to get those bulbs in this week.

I was delighted when DH brought home some tomato plants last week. Someone at his office was giving them away and DH was given two. Both had tomatoes already growing. I immediately decided the struggling bell peppers would give way to these beautiful plants and made the switch.

Here's how the garden looks:

Here are the gorgeous new tomato plants:

These are our original tomato plants which are doing well with lots of blooms but no tomatoes yet:

Here are our sugar snap peas. It's always hard for me to see these guys, but there are three nice pods in this picture:

The girls picked the only full pea pod and made short work of it. I hope their eagerness to eat the peas continues! We had fun planting another patch of peas together. The seeds are nice and big and easy for little hands to handle.

A couple of zucchini squash are making their tiny appearances:

The giant pumpkins look promising, though there are no blooms yet.

Eve had fun picking a few more strawberries:

The lettuce continues to flourish. I thinned it further but still have vast quantities to pick and have been giving much away. This great supply will wane in the next couple of weeks (I think) so I planted more romaine and mixed greens. It may or may not grow as lettuce doesn't sprout if the soil gets too warm - around 75 I think. I'm hoping our temps don't grow crazy this week.

I would have liked more spinach, but I'm out of spinach seeds. I decided I'd use up the other lettuce seeds instead of spending money to buy more spinach seeds.

These are plastic grocery bags full of lettuce.

The carrots didn't take at all so we just retilled that area to plant more romaine and another pea patch. I pulled the bell peppers (which were alive but had only grown about 10% in two months) to plant the new tomato plants. I am still hoping to find cucumber plants so I didn't plant anything in that spot.

Overall I'm feeling like things are growing well!

Katie