Since our my last garden update, things have certainly grown! All of our lettuce has really taken off, and to be honest we’ve had a hard time keeping up with it all.

We’ve had dinner salads, kale chips, and kale smoothie, and per The Renaissance Man, “way too many kale smoothies!”

On the upper tier of the garden the zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, and green beans were just starting to take off in early June.

And by the second week of July the upper garden was well on it’s way. We added some trellis by the green beans to help them grow, but for some reason they just weren’t interested in growing up the trellis. Who knows, maybe they’ll like it better next year?

We’ve also had a few dinners with a side of green beans. The Renaissance Man likes to sauté them in a skillet with butter and a few slices of bacon, they’re delish!

Green tomatoes well on their way! We have so many tomatoes I don’t know what we’re going do with them all…we may end up making a big batch of marinara sauce and do some canning.

Our first red tomato was picked off the vine on July 28th! Fresh tomatoes are such a treat and I love to eat them thinly sliced on a saltine cracker with a little a dab of mayonnaise a bit of salt and pepper. My parents ate tomatoes that way when I was a kid and sometimes at the end of a long day that’s exactly what I crave!

At the beginning of August, we decided to try watering the garden with a soaker hose. The Renaissance Man felt that we were wasting too much water using the big “rainbow” sprinkler, you know the one I’m taking about right? The kind you liked to run through as a kid! We picked up these soaker hoses on a trip to Home Depot and they’re working great.

Just recently we added three more tomato plants to the garden, the ones in the terracotta pots. All I can say is that we have great neighbors who had some extra tomato starts! Thank you!

Lately we’ve been eating squash, squash, and more squash! Last night I chopped up some yellow squash and zucchini and sautéed them in a pan with a bit of garlic, onions and butter. They were the perfect side dish to BBQ chicken!

Although I’m sure many of you feel the same way right now…I’m going to have to invent some new recipes as the number of squash keeps growing by the day! Happy Gardening!