Garden: Then and Now

Our little garden is taking over the backyard doing really well! The pictures below were taken May 29 and this morning (July 13). We are learning a lot. Like, when the plant tag says to plant the plants 12" apart, they mean plant the plant 12" apart -as evidenced by our out of control Roma tomato plants. Thankfully, all of them are producing, we've been pruning the leaves in hopes of more sunshine reaching the plants.

I uprooted some lemon balm and gave it to a friend (it was a free plant and I didn't think it would really do anything... but it got HUGE. And we don't drink tea, so I felt like it was just taking up precious space. So we purchased a yellow squash and zucchini plant (last week) and they are huge (the plants on the right in the bottom picture). I also recently purchased a magazine on canning by Better Homes and Gardens and there is an entire section on Zucchini. "With its uncanny ability to yield big bumper crops, the zucchini plant seems to be the garden equivalent of an overachiever." Hahahaha! It's true! It's only been in the ground a week and it has quadrupled in size. When I told my mom I had planted a zucchini plant, she said we'd have enough zucchini to feed the neighborhood - she was speaking from experience :) I'm taking my chances on the two squash plants. Originally I wasn't going to plant them because they tend to take over and crawl all over the place. I'll post an update here when if that happens.

All in all, we are loving our little garden. We are already planning on expanding it to another box along the side of the yard next year so we can plant even more. We have learned a lot and are excited to learn more.