a growth spurt

Explosion may be a better description actually. Our garden has grown so much over the last three weeks!! The photos are mediocre at best, but dang I'm proud of our little garden. It makes me so happy to go check on the veggies and water the garden each day.

Per the gardening guru at Lowe's, we'll call him Awesome Mike, we bought cucumber bush seeds. I'd say they're bushy, but they vine out also. I'm okay with it, but I'm so glad Aunt Wanda moved some of our plants around on a visit in May. There's no way they would have all fit within the square in which they were planted. Those cucumbers are sprouting all over and in various stages of growth.

And you guys, that's a bell pepper!! I can hardly believe it! Just last week I swore those darn pepper plants hadn't grown an inch since they were planted and vowed to save a few bucks and go with pepper seeds instead of plants next year. And then today I saw not one, but THREE bell peppers. Oh, be still my heart!

I'm just so excited at the prospect of cooking with our home-grown vegetables and already we have plans to expand next year. Deran needs space to grow all of his salsa/chili ingredients and I'd like to add some beans and possibly onions. I just can't express the happiness and satisfaction at seeing these plants grow. I really do act like they're my babies or someone dear to my heart. When Avery finally wanders over while I'm watering I exclaim over the zucchini and she'll wave and tell them "Hi!" in the sweetest voice. Or when I'm showing her the little okra or cucumbers sometimes she'll say, "Awww, dute! (cute)" And I couldn't agree more. Baby vegetables, much like puppies, are very cute!

I picked the first cucumber and okra tonight. At this rate I'll be able to fill a plate by July and I'm totally okay with that. I've really enjoyed the experience so far and I'm really beginning to see that you reap what you sow. And there's your life lesson from my square foot garden. Go forth and plant good things on this fabulous Thursday!