I had a dream last night ...

... that I went to the garden and picked 2 dozen eggplants! Sadly, when I went to check the garden this morning, I did not find 24 eggplants. I found about a dozen eggplant BLOOMS ... and one baby squash!

Here's some garden highlights:

One of the 12(ish) eggplant blooms. I'm also happy to announce that as of right now, there are more healthy flea beetle bite free leaves than there are bitten ones. YaY for Sevin Dust.

This is the Star of David Okra seedlings. I decided to start them in containers to give them a little more protection while they were still tiny. I planted 10-12 seeds and only 5 have sprouted. But it's only been 3 days since the first one came up. I'm hoping there are some late bloomers in there.

This is the much sought after spearmint. (If you follow me on twitter, you read a lot about how hard it was for me to find a mint plant! Whole Foods was where I finally snagged one)

The mint is flanked on each side by the amazing basil. Husband even commented yesterday how surprised he is about the fast producing basil (... I talk to it.)

squash bloom and ACTUAL squash!!

two of the stupices. These will probably be used for salads, sauces ... fingers crossed, canning. I probably won't have enough to can alone, so I'll probably end up making lots of sauce and then freezing it for later. I haven't really decided yet ... ideas?

12 of the Juliets (look hard, it's at least 12) I think I'm going to "sun dry" most of these - except I'm going to use the oven. There's a Dried Tomato Pesto recipe in Animal, Vegetable Miracle that I'm waiting to try on our tomatoes.

the blackberries aren't quite black yet ... but they aren't green anymore either.

FINALLY, a couple of blooms on the strawberries. hurray. I had Husband take them out of a planter and put them in the dirt one night last week at about 10pm because I was worried the planter was stunting their development. (it probably wasn't)

2 of about 10 muskmelon vines. All of the vines have multiple blooms ... I think we're in store for lots of melons. (exciting) I'm going to be the old lady pawning all her melons off on her friends. (ignore all the grass ... I need to pull all that up, it's embarrassing)

one of the muskmelon blooms

I take pictures of the garden so much because Husband gets home from work at 7pm. In our new nightly routine, he hurries and changes clothes so we can go run/jog/walk for about 30-40 minutes and then take the kids to the park (if they are good during the run/jog/walk) by the time we get home it's about 8:30 ... dinner time followed soon by story and bedtime. He doesn't get to see much of the garden in the sunlight. He'll enjoy this post.