First Harvest!

In my last entry (over a month ago!) I showed you my tiny Earthbox garden and confessed that I had apparently botched a foolproof system when I planted my summer squash right in the middle of some fertilizer powder. Well, maybe the Earthbox system really is foolproof. I sure am glad I refused to uproot the squash. Just look at it now!

Are Those... Squashes? Why Yes, They Are!

And here is a beautiful, shiny zucchini:

And some teeny, tiny strawberries:

There's also a four-inch cabbage growing right in the middle of some very bug-eaten leaves, but I don't have a picture of it yet.

Speaking of bugs, I had my second run-in with chiggers last week. My first encounter was on our camping trip last spring. Oh, boy. do those itch. I had about ten giant welts right along my pantie line. Apparently those tiny invisible bugs spend the whole day crawling up your body and stop when they hit resistance (like an elastic band). Then they burrow in and secrete this poison that melts your tissue and causes insane itches. The welts lasted for weeks and weeks. In fact, I feared I'd be permanently scarred.

So you can imagine how careful I was a couple weeks back on our annual camping trip. I needn't have worried. This time we went to a city park. It was all manicured grass. Our site backed up to a giant parking lot! A whole different kind of camping.

Little did I dream that I would get bit by a chigger in my own backyard a week later. The grass (weeds, mainly) had grown way too tall with all the rain. Now, every time I go out to fill the Earthbox reservoirs, I have to wear my old runners, saturated with concentrated Deet spray, and then I have to shower as soon as I come inside.

But it's all worth it. Look at how the garden has grown over the last five weeks:

See the Bug Holes on the Cabbage (Far Right)?

All that lush foliage isn't just pretty to look at. It's actually fruitful. Tonight I picked my first harvest:

But I don't know what I was thinking. I picked it after dinner. I should've waited until I could cook it immediately. Or I should have picked it before I made tonight's pizza. I love grilled zucchini on my pizza. Oh well, I bet grilled zucchini will be great on leftover pizza tomorrow at lunch.

I'm so happy! I am Sarah, and I garden.