Some of the biggest, most beautiful blooms in my garden aren’t flowering perennials, but vegetable plants. The squash and zucchini flowers not only catch my interest, but keep the local bee population busy all day long. There’s plenty of nectar to go around, and the bees have to wipe their feet before exiting to dislodge caked on clumps of pollen.
honeybee tongue darts out like a sword
The vegetable garden is doing very well. I am really pleased that I decided to put it on the opposite side of the house this year. The amount of sunlight on that side makes all the difference. This weekend, I harvested another couple of zucchini, a few squash and a few cucumbers. I grilled the zucchini and squash with some fresh herbs, lemon juice, olive oil and salt. The cucumbers were sliced and added to a spinach salad with balsamic vinaigrette, candied pecans, grapes and carrots. Here’s what I picked off on Sunday:
The rest of the vegetable garden is coming along nicely. I have over a couple dozen tomatoes forming, and lots of bell peppers, habaneros and jalapenos as well.
The cantaloupe is really taking to the trellis I built a few weeks ago. I already have a few fruit starting to form, too!
Zucchini (left) and tomato plant (right)
Zucchini, foreground, and cantaloupe on the trellis
Cantaloupe!
the melon is resting nicely on two pieces of nylon cord
Here are a few selections for this week’s Macro Monday meme. For more Macro Monday photos, click on the link at the bottom of the page:
Argiope trifasciata a.k.a. banded garden spider
lady beetle on gaura stem
bumble bee on Indigo Spires
Fall aster in spring
crab spider inside zucchini flower
It is always exciting when our vegetable garden starts producing. After a few failures in the past two summers due to pests, disease and/or uncooperative weather, it is encouraging to see the plants bursting forth with tiny veggies that will continue to grow into harvest-able crops. I’ll get to those mini-veggies in a minute, but first, BIG news. Well, sort of. The spring/summer garden offered up its first harvest over the weekend – a single zucchini measuring 9-inches long! I am amazed at how fast zucchinis grow! I literally watched it grow a few inches in a matter of two days and a few more are just a day or two behind it. I think this one plant will provide enough zucchini for us to eat for a few months – and bigger than we’ve been able to get at the grocery store. The first picture below was taken on Saturday. I chose not to harvest it then because I wanted it to get an inch or two larger.
Then, on Sunday, I awoke to find the same zucchini had grown almost two inches to the size of a large dinner plate!
Well, that’s the big news. Hey, I relish in good news, whatever it is!
Now for the mini-veggie photos! We have tomatoes, habaneros, green bell peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash, jalapenos and what looks like cantaloupe starting to form!
baby cucumber (tied with nylon cord to tomato cage)
teeny jalapeno
small Early Girl tomatoes clustered together
healthy nub of a habanero pepper
tiny yellow squash (foil to deter vine borer)
beginning of bell pepper
could it be? a cantaloupe fruit?
All of these plants received a healthy watering on Saturday, followed by a 12 oz. cup of freshly brewed compost tea to top them off! Here is the yeasty smelling, foamy, frothy mixture right before I served it up!
The veggie garden seems like it has grown by leaps and bounds the past couple of weeks. Here is a shot taken two weeks ago, followed by a recent shot:
Image uploaded 4.5.11
Two weeks later ...
That’s what a few batches of compost tea will do!
The zucchini (upper right of the bed) is already producing. The flowers are always so large and beautiful. The bees love them, too.
zucchini flower
... turns into zucchini!
As you can see by the first two photos, everything has grown. Check out the tomatoes (top two plants on left side of bed), now flowering and hopefully soon producing:
celebrity tomato bush
early girl tomato bush
Or the yellow squash (second from top, center row):
yellow crookneck squash
The cantaloupe vines are reaching out a couple feet in every direction (second plant from bottom on right row) …
cantaloupe
And the peppers…
habanero
bell pepper
The slowest growing plant has been the watermelon and it was planted a couple weeks after the others (the first plant died). It is finally starting to grow more, too:
watermelon
And my flowers get compost tea, too. The gauras are just going crazy right now and the Indigo Spires salvia is starting to bloom!
A Round Rock Garden 