Blessed and Cursed

The picture above was taken today (7/17/10) but the text below is from 5/26/10. Ok, I'm a lousy blogger!!!

Huh? Yep...I'm blessed and cursed. Blessed to live in the "Bread Basket of the World" where food grows abundantly. This valley grows a huge percentage of the world's food. Now here is the craziness...food can be more expensive to purchase here in our own backyard that it does in other parts of the nation. Our growing zone is 7-9 depending on what part of the valley you live in. Soooo, what is one to do? Why, grow your own food of course! Here it is the last week of May and my garden is going nuts!!! I will have an abundance of tomatoes, zucchini, crook neck squash, green beans, cucumbers and green peppers. Now here is the cursed part, it will very shortly be HOT and my spinach, lettuce and radishes will bolt and be no more (we've had a very cool, wet spring...so unusual for us). By August 1st some of the plants that are going nuts most likely will go belly up do to the extreme heat and I'll have to nurse them along. Good thing I like to get up early so I can work in the garden in the cool of the morning. I plan to revamp the garden this winter and plant raised beds and carefully study the sun/shade patterns on the north side of the house to determine what plants will go where next spring. But in meantime, here's what's growing in my garden.