State of the Garden

(My garden does NOT look like this anymore)

Its official. The garden is a now a jungle of bushy tomato plants, monstrous squash vines, and weeds. Thankfully this year I've somehow kept the weeds mostly in check. My neighbor keeps looking over the fence and saying 'boy, the weeds are doing good,' and I want to say 'Don't you know the difference between squash and weeds?!? Tomatillos and weeds?!? Those aren't weeds!!' I mean, seriously, it is quite a feat to keep the weeds in check, especially when I am simultaneously trying to keep my three kids from picking green tomatoes and trying to ride their scooters down the slide. Don't accuse my squash of being weeds, please. Every morning and evening I go out with a basket and pick whatever is ready. I've found that if I don't go out at least twice a day the squash get out of hand. And because I am big dork, I weigh everything and record it. I know that may sound a little nuts but I do it for a few reasons. First, I want to see how much I can actually grow in one 11' by 55' patch. Second, I want to see if I actually am 'making money,' in other words, do I grow enough to make the money spent worthwhile? The answer is yes, by the way, unless you count my labor...but its so fun I don't really count that. If we were talking about scrubbing toilets or something, that would be a whole different story. And the third reason I record everything is so that I can see how much of each particular type of produce I grew. This will help me next year to decide what's really worth growing, and what we grew too much of. (Squash, anyone?) And if you reading this thinking bla, bla, bla, just shut up about the vegetables already, I will tell you that my grand total of produce so far is 65 pounds. That is nearly a James and a Katie put together! Considering we are just getting into tomato season, I am happy with that. Now off to make pickles!