Late Update

 Hello! I have been having a lot of trouble with cameras and cards for this summer, so this morning I snagged my husband's phone for a few quick pictures. My garden looks to be a sloppy mess right now, but that is because it is growing! Can you tell?
I couldn't even get all of the pumpkin plant in the picture, it has sprawled out so far!

This is a view of the garden from the back. 

That same pumpkin plant has also spread lengthwise along the back of all of my other bales on both sides of the bale out of which it is growing. In fact, it is now crawling up the chubby little pine tree that is in our yard!

You can see that it has grown behind the cucumbers, watermelon, and broccoli plants to the begin winding its way up the tree. 

The flower you see blossoming on the tree is a female pumpkin blossom. This morning I saw two bees in there. Now I wonder if I will end up with a pumpkin in a pine tree!

There are three pumpkins growing at the front of the bales right now, and two of them are already turning orange!

I did not expect that so early in the season. These pumpkins have not gotten very large, although they are much larger than they started out. 

This pumpkin is one of the first two blossoms I pollinated by hand. The other one grew for a while and then died off. 

This little pumpkin is from the first blossom that Giraffe pollinated by hand! :) 

I am so proud of her! She has come to really love learning about gardening. In true home schooling style, we have found many lessons in the backyard through this experience. 

We have learned about seed germination, properties of soil, parts of a plant, pollination, growing conditions, plant illnesses, photosynthesis, metamorphosis, insects, bees, fertilization... you name it! :) 

The best part is that none of it has been schooled learning. It has all been naturally incorporated into daily life. :) 

This little guy is the first pumpkin to have been successfully pollinated by the sweet little honey bees!! :) :)

We are very excited by this, and it gives us great hope for the female blossom open today on the pine tree. 

           :)      :)      :)      :)

The celery is growing a little bit taller every week. 

This last week saw a lot of tall new shoots grow straight up the top. My celery is now, finally, just about the height you buy at the super market!

Now we just need it to thicken up and finish getting ripe. I am concerned it might end up bitter, given the amount of water it has soaked up from a summer's worth of water play. 




Tomatoes continue to boom. The beefsteak tomato plants in the planters are still growing like crazy. You can hardly see the wagon they spilled over onto anymore. lol 

The plants here are now over 5 feet tall, and sending up new shoots every week

This is how it looks from the other side. Like I said, my plants/garden/yard are a hot mess. lol 



As long as I get a good yield, it is a hot mess that I am willing to live with!















The broccoli finally came to a head, as you can see here. 

:)  :)  :)



We have been very excited to watch it grow and thrive!! My dad came by the other day and cut it out for me, so now we wait to see another one come on! 

Since the pumpkin plant grew through and took over the cucumber, it has been slow to produce. 

We are averaging one to three full sized cucumbers about every ten days. This was our largest yet, measuring just shy of 11 3/4 inches long. 

It has been a real delight reaping the slow harvest of peas, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and finally beefsteak tomatoes and broccoli. If we can just get the watermelon to take off in spite of being planted late, we will happily add watermelon, pumpkin, and celery to our harvest before summer is out. :)