Happy New Year! 

Yum! Tomato and basil

 Despite a lot of drought interspersed with heavy rains, I got a good crop of tomatoes and basil with the biggest leaf size I've ever seen.

Hey look at those chickens!

 We chicken-sat for my parents in July.  The chickens had just moved into their new coop and yard from the garage.

 They must have been happy, because one of them started laying eggs the day before my parents returned.

Sunflower happiness

Some of the sunflowers in the garden are already >8 feet tall, and a couple bloomed late last week.  Several others are just about ready to go for it.  I love these guys, although they can really get in the way of other plants and humans trying to navigate the garden.

Yay! Tomatoes (and eggplants)

The tomato plants are just going nuts in the warm, dry weather this year.  Romas (top), big heirloom tomatoes (Cherokee purple, 2nd down) have been growing fruit for a while, but none has a pink tinge yet.  Some of the volunteer cherry tomatoes are nearly ripe though (3rd pic).  Amazongly, I seem to actually have succeeded in getting a few eggplants to survive the constant onslaught of flea beetles this year by planting them in pots near the house (bottom picture).  I love tomatoes, and it seems like we might be on track for a record early harvest this year.

Weedy insanity, and corn

Well, being out-of-commission for several weeks starting mid-May took its toll on the garden.  The plants are growing just fine, but so is the grass and other weeds.  The plot containing popcorn, squashes of various sorts, and sunflowers is really taking off though.  I see some blooms on the yellowneck squash.

No more peas please

What a great pea-producing spring!  I got 9 family-sized servings of shelled peas frozen, and at least 10 parcels of sugar snap peas frozen for the coming year.  And enough peas for everyone to get completely sick of eating them in May.  Except maybe my husband, who can't ever seem to stop eating them raw, cooked, whatever :)