Frank's Inspection

Frank was eager to explore the garden today.  Don't eat our tomatoes, Frank!

He was interested in the broccoli too.

Did you notice the holes in the leaves of the broccoli plants?  Yeah, that's thanks to these little buggers.  A little research has shown that these are the caterpillars of the little white paper butterflies we see so frequently in our backyard.  Apparently they like to lay their eggs on broccoli leaves.

Bell pepper plant! So little still, but very hearty and happy.

Carrot tops:

Carrot!

We pulled a carrot today to see how big they are.  Still itty bitty, but it's a carrot!

Cherry Harvest

We harvested the majority of our cherries today!

This robin (photo from yesterday) helped convince us it was time.

Look!  A tomato!  This is on one of the roma plants.

Critters and Flowers

Gotta love critters in the garden!  This little mantis was maybe about the size of a penny end to end.

This little guy is hanging out on the dill.  We're pretty sure it's going to be a Miller moth when it grows up.

Methinks this radish has been in the ground long enough!  It's going to flower imminently.

Looks like the spinach is going for it as well.  Better pinch that guy!

Some future tomatoes in the works.  What lovely flowers!

The squash have sprouted!  I can't for the life of me remember in which spot I planted the summer squash and which one was the zucchini.  Ah well, we'll find out eventually!

Oh yeah, and there was a really cool annular eclipse today.

Friend or foe?

Here's a cute little creature on the snap pea vines, right after Lori watered.  He appears to be thoroughly enjoying that drip of water.

A blossom on the snap peas!  Pretty soon we should see some actual pods!

This little guy has been hanging out in one of the bell pepper plants for a couple days.  He came out and posed like a natural model for this shot.

A plethora of visual progress

The smallest of our four broccoli plants didn't make it, so we let Amelia plant some random seeds in that area.  Here she is working on her square in the garden.

The surviving (and thriving) broccoli plants.

Radishes, carrots, spinach...

Amelia watering her square.

Spinach!

The biggest broccoli!

Romaine

Green bell pepper plant

NM green chile plant!!!

The squash is sprouting!  One of these is the yellow squash, the other is zucchini.

Green beans!

Tomatoes

Row of peppers

More Progress

Some of the radishes from the first planting are getting huge!  We have eaten a few, and even though the seed packet stated these would be mild radishes, they are very spicy.

This one looks to be the biggest at the moment.

The carrots are showing lots of progress above-ground.

A Visitor

Spider! Ah!

Growing Like Crazy and Transplant Time

Remember those new radish sprouts from the 22nd?

This bad boy is from the first planting.  At about 35 days of growth, he's gotten huge!

These carrots are from the second planting.  Check out those first real leaves!

The spinach is really growing quickly now, it seems.  It's gonna be salad time soon!

The broccoli has been thinned to one plant per mound.  This one is the champ.

The romaine has been thinned as well.  They really took off once there weren't 10 little plants fighting for the same space.

The peas are grabbing hold and climbing up like good little vines.

I love the way they reach out and curl around!

Those cherries started to ripen up quickly.  We'll be eating them in no time if those darn birds leave any for us!

Transplant time!  We made a trip to Jericho today for tomatoes, chiles and bell peppers.  We had our hearts set on Roma tomatoes, but they didn't have any!  We settled for 2 San Marzano plants for now and left room for 3 more tomato plants.  Hopefully we can find some Romas somewhere else!  We also got 5 medium sized Big Jim New Mexico chile plants and six small bell pepper plants.  We'd only planned for 2 bell pepper plants, so we'll have to find somewhere to put the other 4!

Look at those roots!

Amelia really liked shlooping the dirt back onto the plants.  That's one of the Big Jim chiles.

Here's one of the San Marzano tomato plants.  Can't wait for the homemade tomato sauce!