Asparagus Beans

This year I got a screaming deal on some asparagus bean plants and I decided to plant them. I read up on them a little bit and the first thing I saw was that they're very easy to grow, I was sold!

Well, in spite of ferocious winds and excruciating heat, I was able to get a lot of asparagus beans growing in my garden this year. They're kind of freaky looking, they look a little bit like snakes winding their way down the plants, but they're delicious. They taste like a cross between edamame and a black eyed pea.



They grown about 20 beans in a pod and can grow over a foot long. The little guy on the left was picked a little bit early and even the longer ones were almost a little bit early. I highly, highly recommend planting these guys next year if you want yummy beans that are easily grown.

Frankenstein Corn

Sweet corn, one of my most favorite things to come out of a garden. I was so excited to plant my corn, even more excited when it started to sprout. Then, I realized my garden just wasn't the place for my corn. It couldn't grow down into the hard ground far enough to get roots deep enough to support it. So...I kind of water my corn each night, but I kind of feel like its not worth it.

Today, I decided to finally pick the two ears of corn that actually developed and I was downright frightened when I saw what was waiting for me.



What in the devil is this????? It isn't apparent in the picture, but those pieces of corn that look semi-normal, are actually double the normal size of corn and the rest are these tiny little pieces of corn that haven't even started developing. The whole thing was very weird, I felt like I had been a mad scientist in planting the poor little things.

Even crazier? My neighbor's corn stands over six feet tall and is giving her enough ears of corn to eat corn every night. I guess that's the difference between one bag of nutrimulch and $300 worth of manure.

Unbelieveably Exciting

I have been concerned all summer that my garden would fail specifically for two reasons:

1.) No ladybugs had ever graced my yard.
2.) I have never, ever dug up an earthworm.

My travels on the Internet have told me that these are very important things to have when growing vegetables.

To my surprise I came outside today to water my flowers and lo and behold, I counted 11 ladybugs in my garden!

This is one of the little guys on my artichoke.



Here's another on some spinach I let go to seed...whoops!



On another good front, Brandon found a (as in singular) earthworm in our front flower bed. I could have cried I was so excited.

My Very Own Strawberries

Today, I was able to eat the first strawberries that I have ever grown...ever.



They look delicious and ripe and sweet, but unfortunately were very, very tart. Am I supposed to leave these on the on the plant for a while after they turn red? I was worried if I left them too long, then they would get overripe and start getting gross.

Strawberry Munchkin

I am hoping that soon this will be an honest-to-goodness real life strawberry grown in my very own pot.



I am almost as excited about this as I think I will be to have my own child. Just don't let my children know I ever wrote this in the future. I can see the conversation now, "oh course honey, I was wwwaaayyyy more excited to be preggo with you than to see the bud of strawberry in the backyard....."

My Pumpkins are Growing

Of all of the plants that I have started from seed, the ones that I am the most concerned about are the pumpkins. Since Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday, it makes sense that I should be growing my own pumpkins, don't you think? While I do have limited space, I figure that I can just wrap the pumpkin vines in and out of the corn that will (hopefully) be growing very soon.

I feel like I hit a milestone today in that my pumpkin seedlings are big enough to be moved from the little starter pots they have been growing in, to some larger pots I had from other plants. I have been a little worried about my pumpkin plants because they aren't standing up straight any longer. They have gotten so tall that they drooping and starting to weave their way through the other plants. Hopefully, now that they have a little more breathing room they'll start to perk up until the weather finally decides that it won't freeze anymore. It might be July when that happens, but I guess that's what happens when you live in Utah.



This picture does the seedlings no justice, but they are each about 7 inches long. The internet sites I've been  reading religiously have said that I cannot plant my pumpkins until they have their "true" third leaves. I'm assuming that'll be a couple more weeks.

I have learned one thing about growing seedlings, if you want to grow a plant that seriously sprouts up immediately, you should plant soy beans.



These little guys are 3 and 4 inches tall and I planted them 9 days ago. I think that I will have to transplant them out to the garden earlier than the others. At least I'll have a garden full of protein-rich beans if nothing else!

My Alliums

My alliums are starting to come out in bloom.



If only they stayed this way all summer.