Thursday in the garden

Anytime I go to the garden and come back with something more than squash and/or tomatoes, I feel like a celebration is in order!

Yesterday I celebrated 3 sweet banana peppers and 5 of the ugliest smallest but juiciest and tastiest strawberries I have EVER put in my mouth!!

1. I'm trying to pick the squash when they are smaller because I think they taste better that way. And every thing I've read about when to harvest squash says to do it as soon as the blooms fall off the end. Well, this is how big my squash are when the blooms fall off the end.

2. The banana peppers are from two different plants. The larger one is from the plant I started as a seed and the two smaller ones are from the plant that I got at Wal-mart the same time I got the strawberry plants and the first two basil plants. It's exciting to see my seed plant is doing just as well as the store bought plant.

3. Notice how all the tomatoes aren't bright red? That's because Daughter still isn't an expert picker. She's learning. I'm hoping to have enough tomatoes in a few days to make another batch of sauce ... only time and the sun will tell on that one though.

4. I was just about ready to give up on my strawberries. The first ones that grew were eaten by snails before I ever really saw them and where the plants are they aren't getting as much sun as I'd like. My dreams of canning jars and jars of strawberry perserves that I had while I was digging the strawberry square where fading into nothingness. These few ugly little boogers definitely give me hope. Hope for next year. but hope nonetheless. They definitely aren't grocery store quality, but wow, they tasted great. Husband and I both closed our eyes and "mmmmm-ed"

I think the next new thing to harvest will either be the Japanese eggplant or the butternut squash. we shall see.