Just in case anyone wants to hear about it, I'm going to chat about our garden for a bit. It's really amazing how far everything's come along; I'm mostly writing about it so we can remember what we did when and how it was doing...and I know some of you geeks might appreciate hearing about it.

Well, when we got back from Vegas (Oh yeah; Jared and I went there for a family reunion, very fun!), we found our garden looking like we were growing a bunch of green fireworks! And in just under a week, we've gotten so much rain and sun that it's growing even more--unbelievable. We have video uploaded on Youtube too, if you want to see for yourself!

When we transplanted our tomato plants, Jared said that we should put these water shields around them, to keep them warm. It actually really seemed to help, but if any of you are going to grow tomatoes, remember this: don't let them be inside the water shields for much longer than two weeks, depending on weather. Check them often, because at that point they get really big and may either get too cramped in the shields or they might just get fried by all the heat. Fortunately, we only had two or three plants that were still in water shields when we left for Vegas, and the other ones are doing splendidly. Today, we staked them: we put little aluminum wire frames around them so they can climb easier.

Our corn is really high...they have a saying about corn: "knee high by the fourth of July," is how it's supposed to go. Man, by that time it's going to be at least up to my hips, I'm telling you. Though, with all that rain came wind, and since it's at the top of a little rise in our yarn, our garden's been getting blasted by wind, and the corn kind of looks like a comb-over. But it'll be okay.

The beets are coming along; nice and leafy, and you can see a few of them, about two inches in diameter. We're supposed to harvest them at three inches. The green onions are great, too; we've been eating them for a while, hehe, adding them to salads, soups, whatever! It's getting so that we need to harvest them before they grow much more, though. It's like an onion forest, because we're also growing sweet yellow onions. The onions we purchased as bulbs--easiest things in the world, and they were actually really cheap.

The peppers were transplanted a few weeks back, and they're doin' just fine; nice lil' sprouts. (Geez, did an accent slip in there?) The carrots look really fluffy on top, but Jared told me to pull one to see how they were, and it was just a tiny little thing! Eep! So we replanted it. Our beans are looking good, except they may have gotten a little neglected when we were gone, and so the younger leaves look kind of withered and some of the earlier leaves look a bit fried...whether by sun or insect, we may never know. But hey, that's what happens when you leave your brother-in-law in charge of the garden...the beans get neglected.

One of the most exciting things is the spinach! It's so amazingly delicious! We've been having a lot of salad lately, using spinach plucked minutes before with a little balsamic vinegar, fresh strawberries, oil and dried cranberries--mmMMmm!

Although, the kale is something I didn't expect to be so prolific! It's rather an enormous hunk of green that towers and bushes over everything else. I'm looking forward to making some zuppa toscana with it sometime--a little Italian sausage, a little cream, a little chicken stock and kale, and you've got a nice soup going on! The kale is actually pretty yummy right now, even though it's a winter crop...I think we'll probably replant the kale in the fall for another crop, since it's reportedly super hardy.

Ah yeah, and the swiss chard is good too--it's another leafy green, so if anyone feels like they haven't been getting enough of their vitamins and minerals lately, come on over! This breed of chard is multicolored, so their veins are either white, yellow or red--very colorful and festive.

Our basil is doing quite nicely too...we had our first leaves of it last night, when I made a little hors d'oeuvres. They consisted of rosemary focaccia with slices of fresh mozzarella and thinly sliced roma tomatoes, topped with smoked prosciutto and basil drenched in olive oil, salt and pepper. Awesome!! Basil is so wonderfully fragrant.

As for the rest of our herbs, we have a few mint coming up, the oregano's doing nicely, the rosemary's a little slow, and the lavender is getting there. The parsley is positively poofy, the chives are coming along, and the sage looks really good. I think we'll have to wait quite a bit before sampling any of those, except for perhaps the sage.



In other news, my good friend Stephanie is coming to visit in a week, arriving on the fourth of July, and she's planning on making dinner for Jared and I for our first anniversary. We'll be doing the grand tour of Ellsworth, the Twin Cities, and all the fun places in River Falls--and of course, doing a ton of cooking with all the backyard delicacies!

Anyway, I love you all and hope you're doing well. Ciao for now!