Just like heaven...

I popped a few cherry tomatoes into my salad for lunch today…they are SO delicious! I have never been a fan of cherry tomatoes, honestly. But then again, I’ve never grown them either, or eaten them just off the vine…heavenly! There were about 5 ripe ones yesterday, so just enough for one meal. Also got a couple of Romas, although I think they could have used couple of more days to languish on the vine – the DH snatched them up before I could protest.

I’m also working on my second batch of zucchini bread from the second monster zucchini we found this week – where are these things hiding?!? We check every day! Oh, well, I love bread, so it’s all good…

Like comparing apples and... cherries

So, after two years of fighting the cedar-apple rust on our poor little apple tree, we gave up.  The DH ripped it from the ground this week and replaced it with a mazer.  Yeah, that’s a type of small cherry tree.  (Pardon the bad Orange County quotation!).  

Our other fruit trees look great – healthy and sturdy.  No edible fruit yet, although the DH did find a lone plum on the ground under the plum tree this week.  Hopefully we’ll see something worthwhile one of these years… J

How big was it?

Last night the DH and I went out to check on the garden – there’s been a regular flow of squash ready for harvest this week, plus he wanted to swat cucumber beetles with our handheld bug zappers. What did we find but a huge zucchini – over 20 inches long!!! How did we miss that one before? It was towards the center of the garden and I usually poke around the edges, so it is likely that it was just out of my view the last few trips out to the plot. We also found the first “real” cucumber (I was fooled last week by an odd-looking zucchini). J

Compost progress

I'm not entirely sure the compost bin is making compost, but it has to be doing something, 'cause the bin never seems to fill up!  Every time I open it to add veggies scraps or coffee grounds, the level has gone down...that has to be a good sign, right? 
In other Happy Little Garden news, the squash and the tomato plants are slowly moving in from the edges of the small plot and will probably take over the whole garden by summer's end.  Next year we are definitely expanding.  The good thing is that I like tomatoes and squash!  The bad thing is that I also like onions and peppers and it's going to be hard for the peppers to get much sun. 
I pulled the first ripe cherry tomatoes off the vine yesterday, with every plant heavy with green fruit.  Hopefully I get access to Mom's canning equipment before I end up with a boatload of tomatoes and no where to stash them!  Even the patio tomato is looking healthy and strong...
Maybe I'm not so bad at this after all...

The wait is over!

Woo-hoo! The first real harvest from the garden! Check out these two babies - a zucchini and a summer squash, fresh from my backyard. And there are plenty more where they came from, almost ready...
Last week I gave up fighting with the cucumber beetles, gave in, and purchases a definitely-nonorganic solution - insect spray. I know I could have been more patient and tried my friend Michael's suggestion of basil tea, but after the first cucumber casualty, I just couldn't bare it. I'm not sure how much good it is doing - there was a beetle ambling along a leaf as I approached the plot just now, but as I was checking the rest of the plant, I noticed that some of the previously itty-bitty veggies were now full-grown and ready for a-pickin'...
These two will be grilled, but I see plenty of stir-fries, kabobs, and perhaps even some zucchini bread in my future. What a happy little garden I have!