Summer Gardening

The girls and I love to garden each summer ... this year I am keeping things small as last year between our tomatoes and the bushels of tomatoes all of our neighbors grew we could not eat them all and they ended up going to waste. Not to mention I love hitting the farmer's market on Saturday mornings.

So here is what we are growing ... {pictured above our pumpkin vines}

{tomatoes}

{strawberries}

{chives}

{blueberries}

So that is all of our vegetable and fruits ... next week my plan is to focus on all of our flower boxes.

Tomato Thief

I am so lucky to have my best friend and a neighbor on my street who all supply me with their tomato surplus! This year our tomatoes have not fared so well. While we were gone over the 4th of July most of our tomato plants succumbed to the heat. I guess they are just not as heat resistant as our peppers, chives and strawberry plants.

So, I was quite happy to see early this week new blooms and a few small tomatoes on our plants but, imagine my horror when I walked out on our deck today to water the plants and found most of them completely bare ... all because of this little thief (look closely he blends in).
They are called Tomato Hornworms and are completely harmless in the sense that they do not sting or bite but, boy can they eat tomato plants. We have captured two and they are both living in a bug jar with what was left of our tomato leaves.

Glad we still have at least five pounds of tomatoes in the house along with what we will be harvesting all week from our friend's gardens. I figure by the end of this month we were going to have had our fill of tomato recipes anyway. :)