I grow things

So this is where we're at with the garden right now:

-Purple Peruvian & La Ratte potatoes from Seed Savers are growing every second I think. I have to go find straw to layer over them. Have to get on that like immediately. -Purple pole beans from Seed Savers are growing up the trellis Doug made, they're also growing by leaps and bounds.-I found what appears to be a baby eggplant on the vine, crossing my fingers it matures into a normal-sized eggplant. All the eggplant came as plants.-Tomatoes are all getting bigger, noticed a few buds on them too. I didn't start any tomatoes from seed this year, all are heirlooms from a few different local nurseries/farms.

-I have *tons* of peppers, all kinds of varieties too. These are Serrano and they should be mature in a couple of weeks. Also waiting on the pimentos to get big so I can make homemade pimento & cheese for Doug.-Really disappointed with the carrots/lettuce I planted from seed. It looks like hardly any of the seeds germinated. I'm trying to decide if I should wait and see or just pull out what's in there and plant something else. I had success with a different variety of carrots last year so many it's just the variety?

-Cucumbers (from seed) are taking off, I expect to have a bumper crop of cukes.-Butternut squash from seed is also growing well, hoping to have a better outcome with it this year than I did last. -I have one empty bed and one bed yet to be built. I ordered some pumpkin seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds, even though it's probably a little late to plant them. One is a pie variety and the other is decorative kind. We'll see how it pans out.

Despite the fact that its already hot and humid outside and every time I go to water the garden the mosquitoes think I'm an all-you-can-eat buffet I still love growing food. Especially from seed - knowing that something that's on my dinner plate was once a little seed sent to me in the mail is always thrilling. Plus there's the added security of knowing exactly where my tomato has come from, not Mexico, not a hothouse somewhere, but from my own little patch of land. I know everything I put into that soil and everything I didn't (like insecticides and chemicals). Like I've said before I grew up in the grand traditions of vegetable gardens and fruit trees and chickens and beekeeping. Some of the best memories I have are of visiting my great-grandparents and picking hot, juicy strawberries right off the vine, getting lost in the tall stalks of corn in their garden (they always made my legs itch), spending hot summer afternoon shelling peas on the backporch while my fingers turned purple and listening to the roosters crow in the morning. It's happy.