It's June already??

I know, I haven't blogged in ages. We've been busy, and I had surgery, but I still took lots of pictures. Now the update seems like an overwhelming task, so of course I've put it off even longer. But no more!

Ok... first, the garden is huge, and awesome. Here are some pictures of: the sunflower forest; Neil + beet; best overall view I could get; our first corn harvest; and some veggies I picked for a big pot of soup. Ta-da!

I remember late last year researching what kinds of plants to plant with what, and how to be all organic and stuff. I read all about "companion plants" and which kinds to plant to ward off pests. Nasturtiums and Marigolds were at the top of the list of anti-pest plants (one of each in the first two photos below). So that didn't work.  The middle picture shows our "wall 'o 'maters" - once again, Neil told me this would happen. Instead of nice vines going up the strings and each staying in their areas, we've got a hedge of tomatoes. Only the lima beans are giving them a run for their money as far as growth rate. I keep training the lima vines back down and up other strings, and they've quickly become a woven mat that blocks out all the sun for the plants on the other side. Bottom pictures are a Tatume squash on the left (although I thought they were supposed to be zucchini shaped....), and on the right, just a few of the hundreds of tomatoes we have. Honest. It's out of control.

Enough about the garden-gone-wild. My family came to visit before my surgery, and we had a nice afternoon catching up. My dad, Kat, & Patrick had to go back but my mom stayed for a week and a half to help me out. So in the pictures below are: Paul & Carmen (they came over for a barbeque on Memorial Day); my dad, mom and Kat; our Memorial Day feast in the center; beautiful get-well-soon flowers from my dad; and finally... Kat picking grapefruit.

All our animals are doing well. I had lots of pictures of them, so they get an update too. The only real news is Sparky's new best rat friend, Phoebe.

And finally, we've been enjoying the first real produce from our garden. From our two zucchini plants we've already got more than we can eat, so I've been making bread with it, and my mom used some in a lasagna. I'm sure I'll be getting more creative with it this summer. We got enough green beans for dinner one night last week, and enough onions, carrots, squash, beans and peas for beef stew. We picked our first four ears of corn and roasted them on the barbeque the other night - they were super sweet, although still on the small side. We should have waited, but they looked so good!

In the picture: Neil and a bunch of chopped up veggies, ready for pickling; me & my corn, in my happy place; jars of pickles & pickled veggies; sugar for marmalade (that's two batches' worth of sugar - 18 cups!!!); and one of our huge sunflowers. The sunflowers are easily 14' tall now. Farkin' huge!

And that'll have to do as a catch-up post. Next post... all about our upcoming camping trip at Leo Carillo State Park with Steven & Deanna, Rose & Pat.