The Garden

It's the middle of summer, and harvesting has begun.  This is my first year doing potatoes, and they are doing great, as are the peas.

I've also probably picked close to 50 strawberries.  They aren't huge ones, but they are very sweet when you eat them--nothing like strawberries right off the vine.  I've also picked some broccoli, carrots, and lettuce.  Everything is still in the growing phase.  I took some pictures, and I'm very pleased with how things are going.  First is a shot of the whole garden.

 Lots of green in there, which is wonderful.  Below are the tomato plants and potatoes.  I've had a couple tomato plants die, and I'm not sure why.  One is growing beautifully, so I'm befuddled.

 Next is a picture of the beans, which are going crazy.  Some nice bean-buds are forming, so in another four weeks, we'll be eating fresh green beans.

 I grew more potatoes in this spot, as I didn't think the soil was very good and I heard potatoes will grow just about everywhere, which turns out to be true.  You can also see my carrots, lettuce, broccoli, and onions.

 In the upper right are the raspberry plants.  These things have gone crazy this year--we planed two little plants last year, and now they are taking over.  Note also my owl, which does wonders with birds.  Finally, you can see some honey-dew melon and cucumber vines in the foreground.

 What is a garden without corn.  I started all these stalks inside in April.  Each has one or two corn cobs growing on them, and we still have ~50 days of growing until it gets cold again.  I'm thinking we'll be eating corn in late August.

 Pumpkins just go crazy--all those huge leaves in the below picture are from a pumpkin vine.  The aggravating thing is for all that greenery, there isn't a single pumpkin growing yet.

I didn't take a picture of my trees, but my apple tree has six apples growing.  I'll be curious if the apples taste like apples :-)

Ok, now for some bad news.  Harley has been limping on and off for the past few months.  We took her to the vet in mid-May, and he gave her some steroids to see if that helped.  Well, she's been limping again, and this time, the vet x-rayed her knee.  She has a tumor on her knee bone...which is bad.  The only treatment is amputation, so she will be having her back-left leg removed.  It's also a possibility (probably even money) the tumors have spread, which means she might only have six months to live.  Of course, if they haven't she could live another five years (fingers crossed).  If you have any input with the Big Dog upstairs, we'd appreciate some positive thoughts for our pup :-)  I'll post some pictures and an update on Tuesday.