This is for you, Mely!

Recently, my online friend, Mely, asked for pictures of our vegetable garden. :) This time of year is quite embarrassing, but I think the experience is probably almost universal. We blissfully prepare our soil in the spring and plant the seeds with hope and enthusiasm, looking forward to a sure and bountiful harvest. As the season progresses, we cultivate, fertilize, squish unwelcome insects, enjoy the beauty and burgeoning life all around us. And then the harvest begins. We pick, continue to cultivate, and preserve and eat. And then it happens. The weeds take over! That's ok. We've kept them at bay long enough to still get plenty of food.

Here is a view as I approach my weed patch:




Between the rows of flour corn... when I was a child, I loved playing in the corn fields. Looking down a row of tall corn takes me back home to those golden days...



Look at this Cushaw squash! I put my booted foot there so you can see how large it is:



Looking down the tomato row:



The potatoes! (They have died back now, as they should, and all you can see is weeds. My husband will weed-eat the weeds before I dig the potatoes, maybe next month.)



Here is one ear of the flour corn. You can see how wonderfully big it is!



The sweet corn is spent:



Sweet potato vines... still quite happy:



A bell pepper:



And some jalepenos:



The cucumbers are looking rather sad now:



Green bean rows:



Isn't that pretty?



Still waiting for the leek seeds to mature:



Oh no! Wild morning glories! That is one of the worst weeds I ever have to fight, but they are pretty:



And now you can see what I brought in this morning. Peppers:



Tomatoes:



A few green beans:



And here you can see a jack-o-lantern pumpkin:



I do love gardening in all it's varied stages. I know that if we were to do more mulching it would eliminate a lot of the weeds. We just don't do much of that.

Now what do you think, Mely? :)