"We'll build our house and chop our wood, and make our garden grow!"

The garden is doing magnificently with all the rain and all the heat we've been having over the last few weeks. OK, so our bok choi totally bolted and went to seed well before we were ready to harvest. We're going to collect the seed and try again this fall. Almost everything else is doing marvelously. The potatoes are HUGE... I hope the tubers are growing as well as the plants are. We've been having fresh salads for weeks now, and we have a broccoli ready for harvest (if not beyond). In the photo above, you can see our huge Ichiban Japanese eggplant starting to bloom, flanked by purple basil and colorful marigolds.

Ongoing to-do list for this week and next:

• pot Kentucky Colonel mint
• procure and plant new sweet potatoes
• move carrots and parsnip to sunnier spot
• plant replacement peanuts for the ones that didn't come up
• plant brown bell and cow horn peppers... somewhere...
• plant one more broccoli plant, either inside greenhouse, or direct sow
• transplant remaining nasturtium in 3 sisters garden
• remove stumps in side bed, then plant

¡Hosta la vista, baby!

Whew. That's a groaner, even for me.

Anyway, after much hard work by not only Cole and I, but also the kids, all the ugly nasty pink landscaping rocks left by the former owner have been removed from this bed, and have been replaced by lovely hostas, coral bell, and impatiens.

Cole has collected an nice assortment of hostas that look beautiful together. I like the geeky-named ones. We mentioned earlier that we found "Captain Kirk" at the local Hy-Vee. I then ordered "Enterprise" and "Vulcan" on the internet, hehe. Too funny.

Today, I planted the green beans and cowpeas in the three sisters garden. This should be the last planting from seed until late summer, I believe.