The Garden

I just want to take a moment and brag about how I have one of the COOLEST and most amazing friends in the world!! He is Terrific with a capital T. A few months ago he planted me a garden, and it is making some sweet progress! The garden consists of: pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, carrots and bell pepper. Whoa, did I leave anything out? I guess the question is what NOT did he plant? So I have taken pictures of this beautiful garden in progress. Twice. The first shoot was on the day of March 10, 2008. About 3 weeks after it was planted. Note that each plant looks the same here. The seedlings don't really differ except in size. Exciting, but just wait. Here are a few shots. . .

This one to the right is the whole garden. From the front its the pumpkin, and going back it follows the list I made in the first paragraph. These are just the first sprouts, and I felt like a proud parent! I had done something right, and they were growing strong :)





These are the beginnings of the tomato plants. They didn't start out as seeds from the time he planted them. They were a few inches smaller than they are in this picture. It is 3 different types of tomato plants, I only know the far right one is a cherry tomato plant and the far left one is called Beefy tomato or something like that. Supposedly they are very large ones. Ideally used on sandwiches. Yummm....



To the right are the first batch of strawberries that came out. They started coming fast, and there were a lot all over the whole plant. They didn't get very large, not too much bigger than shown in the picture. When they started to color and turn red, I became STOKED. Our very own homegrown strawberries. Double Yummy. As a side note: the first harvest was delicious. After that they just started dwindling down. I'm not sure what went wrong, but we both agreed the taste was better than any other store bought strawberry we've had before. Homegrown = muy bueno.




Now, prepare to see what this garden has become as of this 21st day of April, 2008? Behold. . . The Garden!!! Notice how the pumpkin plants are trying to overtake the rest of the garden. We ended up having to improvise a fence so they didn't mix with the watermelon or cantaloupe. My pride rests with the pumpkins and the tomatoes. Also notice them in the far back, they've grown quite a bit! Its like they are on Viagra, er. . . I mean Miracle Grow. We pollenated the pumpkins by hand. There is a male flower and a female flower. The female flower has the fruit behind it, and it blooms for only one day, so you have to keep your eyes peeled. Otherwise you lose them. The female flower has pollen stems inside in a circular pattern. The male flower has a single pollen stem. I'm sure you can guess how this process would be done. . .





Here is one of the pumpkins (right). This made me very happy to see. They are growing really fast. The fruit is only about the size of a marble before you pollenate it, and its gotten this big in just a couple days! The tomatoes are kicking butt. Here are the beefy ones (left). And below are the cherry ones. Eventually they will turn red. Voila! Then they will be ready to eat :)

So, I guess you could say my dear, dear friend is pretty cool! I know everyone wishes they had as cool a friend as I've got, but you'll just have to find your own cool friend. There's a lot out there. Don't worry, you'll find a cool one soon enough :)