And just like that, all the digging, weeding and watering bears fruit.
Zucchini
A new zucchini to cut every 3–4 days.
Zucchini is a favorite of mine to grow because it is so blasted easy! The first year I grew them, I crowded them with tomatoes, to which I gave higher priority. Not only that, but my kitchen compost carried with it an extremely fast growing mystery squash, whose color and shape matched nothing I saw in the grocery stores, until it sat on my counter for a few months (at which point it turned yellow) and I cut into its stringy flesh to discover one of my favories—spaghetti squash!
Did any of this daunt my zucchini’s?? Definitely not. They gave me an abundance of fruit, large and small. And I vowed thereafter to cut them as babies, because there are always so many, and the babies are delicious.
Cucumber
The cucumber vine Jared brought home from his gardening class at school.
This year Jared took a gardening class at a greenhouse next door to his school, and brought me several things home. One was a cucumber plant.
Now, I had tried to grow cucumbers before, and somehow ended up killing them all before they could be safely ensconced permanently in the ground. Perhaps I was overeager…and perhaps also we had a spring this year that allowed for early outer plantings.
Either way, this one lonely cucumber has climbed it’s way up and over its trellis, and has borne yummy fruit. Even the kids ate it up, and they are still exasperating with choosing foods.
Tomatoes
The first of the Tasty Evergreen Tomatoes...how does one know when they are ripe, I wonder?
This year’s tomatoes came from Seed Savers, as I wanted some heirloom varieties, and something other than red. The tallest and most sturdy of the three varieties was the Tasty Evergreen. Being that it’s green, I’m not sure when I should pull this puppy off the vine. Although, I throw unripe tomatoes on the grill and eat them too, so perhaps it won’t really matter.
The first of the Black Krim tomatoes.
I opted for a Black Krim variety as well, though it’s proving much less robust than its green sister, being much shorter, and developing rolling bottom leaves. Apparently it’s nothing to worry TOO much about, and clearly it’s not affecting its fruit production.
Corn
One of the corn plants Jared brought home. It has red hair.
Another one of Jared’s take homes, we have exactly two stalks of corn. Not ever thinking of growing corn to begin with, I put these guys in the ground as a lark, and voila…I have ears! With fuchsia hair.