Just have to brag about today's shopping trip! This was at a normal grocery store. All this for $3.25...and would've been $2.25 if I hadn't misplaced one of my coupons! Regular (inflated) retail was $40.

Other than wheeling and dealing, I've been keeping busy with gardening and (gasp!) schoolwork. I've been (slowly) working on the comprehensive exam essay questions that I was supposed to have done last fall. Well, so far pretty much just doing background reading, but eventually that will turn into writing. But that's boring, let's take a look at the garden!


Sorry about the zoomed-out-ness, but the point is, it looks nearly empty. Sad. The green beans in the middle are still humming along. The corn and cucumbers off to the left are still small. There's one cauliflower I haven't pulled out yet. Off to the right, formerly the pea area, will now be potatoes.

The other big bed (not pictured) is also looking whimpy. The hot weather made all the lettuce bitter, so I had to pull it all out. I think I'm going to put potatoes there too (they'll keep into the winter if stored correctly). In place of the turnips are pole beans and a second wave of soybeans. The carrots and onions are still growing slowly in their original positions.

The real action nowadays is along the sides of the house! I present, THE BEAST:
To exacerbate its beastliness, I didn't even plant this! I did fertilize using stuff from the compost pile, so perhaps the seeds came from a grocery-store fruit? It is freaking enormous, so I'm training it to grow up the railing instead of into the driveway. Up close, you can see that it's a yellow squash:
That's the biggest fruit so far, but with all the beastliness it will probably only take 3 or 4 days to reach nomnomnom size.

The other beasts, also accidental in nature:
These are mini pumpkins that sprouted from the seeds of last year's Halloween decorations that I threw off the porch once they started rotting! (Off to the far right, the soybeans are waist-high and the pods are starting to fill out) Mini pumpkins are cute, but also edible. I had one oven-roasted last week, and here are its about-to-be-eaten friends:
In the front? My first bulb of garlic, from one of the cloves I planted last fall! After its impressive early growth, it died back over winter. In the spring it sprouted again with the spring bulbs, but recently died back again, so I decided to dig it up and see what it looked like. Voila! Not for the impatient, though, as apparently they're supposed to overwinter before plumping up.

Love, love, love my garden! And my slick deals. And my kitties. And I guess to make the list complete I have to throw the husband in there too :P