The Fruits [And Leaves] of Our Labors

At the beginning of the season we planted a vegetable garden in our back yard. We've done this in the past, but two years ago pretty much nothing produced anything, so we didn't do it last year. This year, things are different. Here's what the garden looked like when we first planted.
We planted 4 different heirloom tomato varieties, 2 cucumber plants, 1 crook-neck squash, 1 butternut squash, 3 different bell pepper varieties, 4 hot pepper varieties, sugar snap peas, cilantro, and basil. Notice all the empty space covered with bark? Here's what it's looking like lately.

It's filled in beautifully! Most of what you're seeing is the butternut squash vine that has taken over the back yard, but I don't care because I already have a few big squashes on the vine. I'm pretty excited about it. See what's coming along.

We've eaten some sugar snap peas, and I've already had two BLT's with my fresh tomatoes. Fa-Nominal! But I was too busy enjoying them to take a picture.
One of the things I'm most excited about is the basil. It's thriving, so I finally made some pesto. Oh man, it's beyond good! I picked about three cups worth of leaves off the bush, and you can't even tell I took anything off the plant (I'll have to make some more!). Here I am (in my new Anthro shirt, told you you'd see me in it soon!) cutting off some leaves.

I brought them in the house and put them in a big bowl of cold water to wash off any dirt and/or bugs. I put them through the salad spinner to get them dry, then I put those in the food processor with about 2/3 cup walnuts, 2.5 oz Parmesan cheese, 1 clove garlic, 1 cup canola oil, and salt and pepper to taste, and voila!

Put it on pasta, bread, a cracker, a fork, whatever! I've eaten three meals of whole-wheat pasta and pesto in as many days. And I might just have it again for dinner tonight. It's that good. Or you can come over and have some with me. The Rockstar doesn't like it (He's crazy, but we love him anyway) and I need someone to enjoy this with me!

Sweetness*

Two weekends ago I went to lush, gorgeous Vancouver, WA to spend time with some of my favorite women, my sisters. Unfortunately, on every trip I forget something, and for this one, it was my camera, so you'll have to check out their blogs to see what I mean by lush and gorgeous. But I must have felt inspired by the amazing scenery, because we decided to plant in our back yard this weekend. It's not quite as idyllic as my sister's in-law's yard, but I couldn't be happier with it. I just smile every time I look out my kitchen window.

The plant I'm most excited about is this lilac tree. Apparently they graft a dwarf lilac onto the trunk of something else to create the tree. I'm in love. It smells divine. Lilac's always make me think of my mom and my grandpa's house. Plus it's the perfect small scale for our small backyard. It's practically perfect in every way. To balance things out, we got a swirly topiary for the other side of the yard.

We also have two hummingbird feeders, at which we get frequent visitors. They keep things entertaining.

The only flowers we planted went in this big pot with several different vines. The vines are dichondra (silver) and two varieties of sweet potato vine called "margarita" (chartreuse) and "blackie" (dark purple). The flowers are zinnia (yellow), dahlia (purple), and poppy (orange).

The poppy hadn't bloomed when we bought it, but it turned out to be this neon orange. And the inside looks like this.

We put in this fountain last year. It's a nice way to drown out the noise from our very-close neighbors. The only perennials we had back there were the hosta's. We also planted a few varieties of coleus to add some pops color.

*Sweetness is both a reference to the lovely smelling lilac, and the song I was listening to when I started writing the post.

By Their Fruits

The first of our harvest! This pepper is supposed to be all yellow, but only got sun on one side, so we'll let it finish ripening in the window.

And we have one jalapeno pepper so far, but there is the promise of several more in the future.

And this last one's for Karla. They're still alive!

Look What Popped Up in my Backyard!

I think it's a tiny little Morel mushroom. No, I didn't eat it. You can never be too safe with mushrooms. Ugly little bugger, too.