Baby Food

The garden is bursting with life! When I think about the years that I dreamed about my garden, and read books about gardening to keep me feeling connected to the process when I couldn't actually participate, and how I planned it all out on paper. . . and then planted each little seed in a seedling tray and had my boys build me my raised beds according to my plans, and we started our little garden. . . and then, well, I look out my back window?

It is good. And I am loving it. We are on the verge of having so much food!

Here are some pictures of the progress. The broccoli plants were huge, and now the cauliflower plants are right on their heels. Here is Conor standing next to a cauliflower plant.

This is the first bed, with lettuce and tomatoes, mostly. The tomatoes have really grown in the last three weeks and create nice shade for the lettuce, which, as it gets warmer, probably won't have much time left.

This is the second bed, with the cauliflower, spinach, green beans, and more red leaf lettuce.

The third bed with broccoli, Swiss chard, more beans, and sugar snap peas. And the Roma tomatoes.

And the back bed with the Heirloom tomatoes, the garden peas, carrots, zucchini, parsley, and cilantro. The sugar snap peas, which I am so excited about, have blossoms!

This is cool. Once you harvest the large main head of broccoli in the center of the plant, the plant continues to put out little baby broccoli shoots in each of the stem junctions. This is perfect for clipping and putting on top of a veggie pizza.

The zucchini have blossoms now! Yay! I have so many plans for zucchini!

The garden peas will be ready to harvest very soon. I am so excited to sit with the kids around the table and shell peas. Talk about a good time.

The Heirloom tomatoes all have blossoms. This is a Tennessee Spears, a green tomato.

More broccoli! I planted broccoli several times, to extend our harvest. Good thing!

And my first planting of cauliflower will be ready to harvest soon!

We'll be up to our eyeballs in green beans. I have over sixty green bean plants, and they each have little baby beans on them. So cute!

Here are the (still green) baby cherry tomatoes. These usually don't even make it into the house because of grazing children.

Isn't it so wonderful? I feel like singing! And I'm already making plans for what to plant next!