Observations of a First Time Gardener: One month in

• When the little card with instructions says to space the cucumber plants a certain # of inches apart, you should probably double that instead...otherwise those vicious little suckers will, overnight mind you, wind their creeping (and creepy) little vines around their innocent tomato neighbors and attempt to suffocate them to death. Putting up a couple of stakes with wire for the cucumber plant to attach to instead seems like a good idea; we'll find out soon enough.
• Cucumbers ripen in no time flat. In the morning you might thing, well, that one is not ready yet, and by the evening you're thinking, oh my goodness, did I let that go too far? Is it still going to be good? It is, but I can't believe how these things grow!
• We're three cucumbers in and so far they have ripened one at a time. All good. However, I have fear in my heart because there are about a hundred little tiny cucumbers that look like they are going to start growing into "real" cucumbers all at the same time...what the heck do I do then? Oh, neighbors, want some cucumbers? Fresh from my organic garden...
• OK, so I was excited about this whole garden thing when I bought the tomato plants. A couple of romas, a couple of beefstake, a couple of cherry tomatos...sounds about right, right? But then I wanted some bigger plants too offset by smaller plants with the theory that they would produce at different times. And there were the tomato plants that were not labeled that were on sale that I could not resist...so now I have 13 tomato plants. EVERYONE who has had tomato plants before laughs when I tell them that. It did not seem so ridiculous when I bought and planted the things. Then, it was just fun and exciting. Now, still fun, still exciting and they are growing like gangbusters. Only thing is, I kinda see why they laughed now...The two roma tomato plants have a number of tomatos on them and will ripen first...the others are all a few weeks behind, but I see based simply on the number of buds on the plants that this could get interesting...again, oh neighbors, want some tomatos? A good problem to have, and frankly I am not counting my chickens before they hatch...just let me get a few good, yummy, fresh from the garden tomatos and I will be forever happy...but I am going to admit, even at this early stage, that it is possible I made a rookie mistake and planted too many tomatos!!!!
• Eggplant plants are pretty. They really are. The flowers are pretty, the plants are robust and lovely, and I can't think what the heck I am going to do with eggplant. I mean, I'll eat some of it and maybe do an eggplant parmesan...but how many eggplants come off of one plant? I planted two (showed restraint, I did) and we'll see how that goes. So far, I really like those plants. They keep to themselves (take a lesson, cucumbers) and they don't need to be staked (that's for you, tomatos). At least not yet. Both eggplant plants are growing up and out at about the same rate which seems to be working out nicely. I am very pleased with them thus far.
• Strawberry plants were kind of a waste of money. I mean, we bought a bunch and then the birds have eaten every stinkin' berry they produce. Actually, Macey salvaged two so far but they were not yet ripe when she picked them. I think we need to get some netting to put over the strawberry patch to keep the birds away. I know that strawberries usually produce better in the second year than the first (assuming I can remember to mulch them and all that before winter hits so that they survive the Minnesota winter) but really, I thought we'd get SOME berries this year. Darn those birds!!
• Basil gets much taller than I thought it would. Based on some advice I read, we put a handful (OK, I admit it, 6) basil plants around the tomato plants and the smell lovely. Put some fresh basil in our spagetti sauce tonight and it was delicious. Basil is good. Easy too.
• When I did the original planting in early June, I could not find squash plants anywhere. I tried three different places and no one had any that looked like they would make it to my house, nevermind through the whole summer. Last weekend I stopped at Pahl's Nursery to use a gift card from my birthday and they had all their veggies on 75% off. Practically free!! I found 2 yellow and 2 green sqash and we planted them right away. They seem to have taken to the garden and are doing well. There are couple of baby squash already on the yellow ones...lovely!!
• Against Jason's advice (and frankly my better judgement) I let Macey talk me into two pumpkin plants and a watermelon plant. Again, 75% off, so for about .80 I guess its no big deal, we planted them in the garden. This was before the cucumbers started to take over the world....now I am a bit concerned about what those guys are going to do when they really take off. Hum. Again, lessons learned...
• Having a garden is fun. Its not nearly as much work as I thought it would be, helped perhaps by the fact that we had the dirt brought in and it was the perfect garden mix of soil, clay, manure, etc. that a backyard garden requires, along with having no weeds at the beginning....next year will be the real test. Even so, I pull weeds up daily and its not really much of a chore at all...again, I may regret even saying that! Probably should delete it. SHOULD I delete it? Give me a nother month and I'll let you know...
• Carrotts grow slowly. Surely, surely, those little green sprouts keep getting bigger, but slowly, slowly, slowly. Our neighbors have some that are probably a foot high...mine are like two inches high. However, those are the only things I planted from seed so I am taking a particular pride in the fact that they came up at all. If I get one carrot that we can serve up for dinner, I'll be SUCH a pround mama!!
• Kids love gardening. They love seeing things grow. Not so much with the weeding, but all in all they are really into the garden too. It will be fun to see if their enthusiasm carries over to when they are grown. Or to the end of the summer.