Garden Update - End of July edition

I know, I know... it's August, not the end of July.  But so much has happened with the garden in the past few weeks that I can barely even describe it, and all of these pictures are from the end of July.. When I go up there, it's so overwhelming that I stand there looking around and shaking my head for a solid 10 minutes before I feel prepared to jump in and start doing some work.


It looks something like this:

Overwhelming, right?

The beans are coming in like crazy.

The tomato plants are so laden with tomatoes that the stems are bending from the weight, and some are even breaking.  Yes, they are in tomato cages.  They grew out of them, that's how large these plants are.

The basil looks good but is being knocked over by the fall tomato branches.

The peppers, likewise, are being knocked over by the enormous broccoli plants, which I really should just pull out of the ground, since the broccoli didn't really happen this year.

And the cucumbers... oh my, the cucumbers.  I don't even know where to begin with these plants.  They are growing like crazy, up the fence, and straight into the yard.  They are vining out to the potato plants and wrapping their slimy little legs around them.  I've put up supplementary fences to encourage them to vine onto things OTHER than plants, but it's not really working.  They're just too big.  And amazing.

Look at these beauties.

I am most excited about the cucumbers this year because last year the cucumber plants did not do very well.  The plants were yellow and straggly and the cucumbers looked more like oversized bouncy balls than fresh produce.  I've got so much to say about the tomatoes that I'm going to save those for their own post.  But know that I have been struggling to give away all of the cucumbers this year.  It's amazing.

I think my thumb is finally green!! Woot woot!

(P.S. Vacation posts resume tomorrow!)