wow, it's the first of july already! it has been 5 months since we moved into this new home and so far, i've harvested about 15 - 20 zucchini, 2 cucumbers (i just harvested one today), numerous sugar snap peas and strawberries, 10 - 15 carrots, and about 10 heads of large broccoli (not including the many smaller broccoli heads that grew out of the plants after the larger heads were cut). its just amazing what kinds of food i can grow in our backyard!

i am currently waiting for the tomatoes to get ripe (10 different kinds), the soybeans to blossom and harvest, almonds to harvest, plums to pick (probably not for at least another year), harvesting the rest of the onions, all of the garlic, trying the sweet potato once its ready (..around september) and the planting of the fall crops.

i just got my packets of onion (red and white) seeds from seedsavers.org, as well as some monnopa spinach. i never really ate spinach but the description for this variety is that it is the "sweetest" variety. im hoping its a easy way into get me interested in eating spinach. :-) (i haven't told hubby yet that i bought spinach seeds, and he has told me that he doesn't like them...shhhh)

i've done some reading, and i think carrots are something i can plant year-round. this is good since both of us eat carrots. i just may have these always in the garden somewhere. something else we can grow all year are turnips...i don't think i've ever eaten a turnip, so i might just try this one day. maybe next year.

because of the heat and drought, the lawn in the front and back yard have been turning brown and crispy. we are thinking of putting raised beds for more growing capacity instead of redoing the lawn. not sure if we actually need more growing capacity, but it would be more eye-appealing and edible instead of a dead lawn. what do you think? :-/

i really love being in that garden. every day after coming home from work, i put my stuff down, say hello to the birds and walk directly out to the backyard. it's like a "good" habit of mine, and it really melts the day's stress away for me. i check for bugs (helpful and destructive), admire the flowers, harvest ready vegetables, water the watermelon patch (gosh, do they need daily water!! if not, they just stop growing), look for new seedlings (german chamomile and calendula), as well as new tomatoes in the tomato garden, see how the new transplants are doing, water the seedlings and potted plants, peek into the zucchini forest, and trim some invading vines or leaves from space belonging to another plant (those h-u-g-e zucchini leaves can be rather "assertive" in their growth, so trimming them down to size is sometimes necessary). i have also been on the look out for soybean flowers. from what i've seen (and photographed), i think i only see buds. outside seems like a great warm/hot day so maybe they will finally bloom for me. :-)