6 weeks...

Six weeks...no I am not posting that I am pregnant again, wouldn't that be a hoot!  Although if I had posted this yesterday I'm sure I would have had a few people going for a little while.  Sadly I did not pull any April Fools jokes.  I usually have a few good ideas every year but I'm not particularly fond of being pranked or surprised so I follow that age old golden rule.  You know the one "Do unto others..." yeah that one.

So what in the world am I talking about when I say 6 weeks?  The crazy explosion that is our veggie garden of course!  I can't even explain how amazing it has been to watch it grow...and grow...and grow.  so I will share some pictures instead.  As you may recall this is what the garden looked like on Day 1.

February 15
Day 1

I was beyond ecstatic as things began to grow and the seeds we planted starting popping up.  We even managed to get some of the tiniest tomatoes I had ever seen on one of our tomato plants.  We didn't just have plants with flowers, they were actually growing edible parts!

February 23
Our first bunch of tomatoes

March 3
The cucumbers begin to climb

March 7
The same tomatoes less than 2 weeks later

March 7
The first green pepper emerges

March 8
Day 21

So by the start of the 3rd week all seeds had sprouted and everything was really starting to grab hold.  We were even so successful as to have plants growing fruits.  So we decided to make a scarecrow, isn't he cute.  Then we got a pretty good storm.  The winds were very strong and I had to prop a few of the plants back up that got pushed over.  luckily nothing was uprooted completely.  They didn't seem to mind the wind but they really loved the rain!  They loved it so much that I was able to harvest some of the lettuce to make a salad for dinner one night.  It was so yummy, AJ ate 3 bowls of salad that night!

March 8
Our new addition

March 16
Red Leaf Lettuce before I harvested some of the leaves

March 16
Day 29

March 17
The first harvest
Kale, Iceburg, Chard and Red Leaf Lettuce
(Brussels Sprout leaves were for show and tidying up the garden)

I was a little sad when taking all of these leaves.  I was thinking that it would take forever for some of the plants to put out more and wondering if I had just ruined the plants chances for producing a nice head of lettuce.  I knew I was being silly but I didn't know just how silly.  I think the garden may have needed this reassurance that we were actually going to eat them and not just look at them and let them die out.  They figured if we weren't going to eat them then what was the point in putting all this energy into making beautiful, tasty veggies that were going to go to waste.  All they needed was one small massacre to ease their little vegetable brains that if they grew we would enjoy them.  And how appropriate that this Green Massacre occurred on St. Patty's Day, green veggies on a green day, perfect!

Two days later I was out checking on the garden like every day and everything was out saying hello, it was wonderful!

March 19
My little green pepper bud is growing up

March 19
A cayenne pepper is popping out to say hello

March 19
Tomatoes are starting to show up on our other 2 plants

March 19
Neat and tidy after the Green Massacre but still thriving 

After this I guess I stopped checking on the growth of the plants and started focusing on the growth of the fruits they were putting out.   It's so exciting to walk out everyday and see noticeable change, sometimes it would be noticeable even after a couple hours, that still has me in awe.

March 28
Remember my one tiny Cayenne Pepper?
It grew friends, this is 9 days after the first pic

March 26
I was super excited to go out one day and find these little cuties
Our first Wax Beans

March 31
5 days later here is what the Wax Beans look like now
Huge and changing color!

March 28
In less than a month this pepper and all it's buddies
have never stopped growing, it'll be changing color soon too!

March 31
That is one huge Swiss Chard leaf
I almost don't want to cut it

As impressive as all of those are this one still gets me every day...all of these pictures are of the same cucumber...

March 19
We start noticing cucumbers, very exciting!

March 26
It's butt end start turning dark green and getting big

March 28
Only 2 days since last pic, look how much bigger!

March 31
Mom and I both exclaimed Holy Crap! when we saw how big it had gotten

In less than 2 weeks this one cucumber went from a little flower bud to an almost fully grown cucumber, how can you not be amazed?!  I have not taken pictures of it yet this morning (two days after the last pic) but I can assure you that it has grown noticeably since then.

This next set of pictures really has me excited.  I know, how much crazier can I get?!  Remember my first bunch of tomatoes?  Well I go out one morning and one of them looks funny then I realize...it is changing color!

March 26
see it looks all funky and brown I thought it was dying

March 28
2 days later, it looks so pretty and I don't even like tomatoes

March 31
I picked the first one (no pictures yet) but all of it's friends are coming right along
Isn't it beautiful, all the different shades

 Mom and I both check on the garden at least once a day to see what new changes are occurring, though as I said I had stopped taking notice of the plants themselves.  Then one day I walked out and couldn't overlook the plants any longer, they were huge!  Look, you'll see what I mean.

March 31
Day 46

Now I ask you how could I have possibly overlooked growth like that!?!?!  Everything is huge, I can barely get in there to check on everything, or weed or harvest.  What in the world were we thinking?  So we did the only logical thing.  We bought more plants and dug up another 8x8 plot of land.  Stage two is complete and here is the finished product.

March 29
Stage 2, day 1

March 29
Just added onto the front
Don't the new plants look so silly?

March 29
As you can see off to the left we already have stage 3 laid out, time to dig!

In stage 2 we planted...Sunflowers, Corn, Romaine Lettuce, Broccoli, Jalapeno Pepper, Strawberries and Asparagus.
Stage 3 will consist of...Spaghetti Squash, Eggplant and Sweet Potatoes.

We know that some of our stuff isn't in the best spot whether it needs more or less sunlight or whether is needs more or less room then we anticipated or any other slew of reasons.  But, everything seems to be thriving either way and it's been fun so far.  I would dig up most of moms yard if I didn't think that she would disown me after I did.

Hopefully the garden won't over take me again as it did the past few weeks, every time I took a picture with intentions to post the very next day something else would have doubled in size over night and next thing you know I'm writing a blog post the size of a small book.  Thanks for reading and I hope this motivates someone to get out there and plant a garden of your own if you haven't already.  It's so rewarding!