Just a quick note, because I am leaving for St. Louis tomorrow and will be gone until Sunday, when I may stop up to the garden for a while to help with the cleanup.

Crops have been growing faster in some cases that we can use them, or even pick them (which is always how it is, but I thought I'd say as much). The zucchini and cucumbers have all been growing very well, and last week I picked some of the largest zukes I've ever seen in person; easily 10-12 pounds, maybe more, and at least 18 inches long (though nowhere near the world's record of 59 pounds). All told, in the last week I've picked several tomatoes, about 8 zucchini, 10 cucumbers, 8 bell peppers (of goodly size) and several banana peppers. Jonathan Reynolds has been coming by about once a week as well to harvest (that's his word--where I come from we call it bein' a dirty sneak! Okay, not really.). The tomatoes have all found homes, as have a couple of the zucchini and cukes, and most of the peppers, so at least they're getting used beyond the cosmic universal sense of rotting in a pile to be tilled into the ground again next year.

The weeds, however, are pretty much out of control again, despite our efforts earlier in the year to keep them down. I'll be more than happy to try out the square foot gardening method if it makes this part of the process easier.