Shannon and the Bean Stalk

At the beginning of summer, I planted three string-bean plants. They were small, scrawny little things. I was positive that they wouldn't grow, but Grace was on a bean kick and who am I to deny her green vegetables?

It took a long time for them to grow. We were producing red tomatoes before the plants had even climbed to the top of their trellis. Then, suddenly, they sprung to life. I added a second cage to the trellis. Up, up, up they went.

I was so proud.

Alas, there were no beans. Shouldn't we have beans by mid-July? I saw a cousin facebook about here bean bounty weeks earlier. Our plants kept growing and growing though. The weight of the plants became too much. It toppled over onto our wood pile. The creeping vines overtook two of  the cherry tomato plants. That was the end of July.

While surveying the damage of our structural collapse, I noticed these. Yea!

And over the next few weeks, it seems we have more little flowers than leaves on this monster of a plant.

And we have our first real bounty of home grown string-beans.

Grace at two and Clare threw hers on the floor. Matt ate them because he knows what is good for him. Me? I savored every bite.

Tomato, Tomahto

Growing up, our gardens was my favorite part of summer.

The smell of the roses at noon and honeysuckle at night. Veggies galore. Peppers, melons, herbs and tomatoes.

Oh, the tomatoes. I would plunk myself right in the middle of the tomato area with a salt shaker for lunch. One summer I broke out with an incredible rash, that only intensified as the days went on. Diagnosis: tomato allergy. I'm fairly certain I had eaten little else for the previous week. Even after some heavy doses of Benadryl and laying off the fruits for a few days, the rash would return every time I ate anything tomato- ketchup, pasta sauce, soup- which was a major problem in my tomato heavy diet. No worries though, by the next year I was fine and realized I needed to bring a loaf of bread to the garden with me.

As an adult, I seem to be perpetually trying to recreate that rash. Every year I grow more tomatoes than I know what to do with. And every year I seem to plant more than the year before.

This was today's haul:

And the plants are still FULL. I only picked the ripest of the bunch. I may be starting a big batch of tomato sauce tomorrow and canning. Anyone want some?

Gargantuan Veg

Last night I went outside to collect tomatoes for my all time favorite summertime recipe, Pasta With Fresh Tomato, Roasted Garlic and Brie. Yum. We will eat this a million times before the summer is over.

Anyway, so I'm out collecting ripe tomatoes when I start poking at my zucchini plants to see if anything has grown, you know, since I've put zero effort into them since planting. And OH. MY. GOD.

To give some perspective on the size of this sucker...

Using some highly scientific standards, I weighed myself on the Wii (yes, it has in fact turned into a glorified scale), and then weighed again with the zucchini. Officially it said 1.8 pounds, but I think it is over 2.

Now, what the heck do I do with it? Maybe this...