Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

So my first vegetable garden went from looking like this......

to THIS..... 

I have 5 tomato plants, 1 zucchini, 1 summer squash, 1 spaghetti squash, 2 cucumbers, 3 green peppers, 1 jalapeno, 5 red potato mounds, a small strawberry patch and 8 raspberry starts of which only 3 survived, and 2 rows of green beans.

here is a picture of the first harvest I made from it.... 

Since that first pickings I have continually been reaping the benefits of growing my own veggies.  It is true what they say, NOTHING tastes better than vegetable picked right from the garden. It has been fun watching everything grow and going out daily to see what veggies are ready to pick. There is something very satisfying in eating what you have grown yourself.

Besides the new adventures in gardening I have now for the first time in my life tried my hand at putting up veggies to eat later.  My first attempt was Dilly Beans.  My friend LeAnn had me try hers and they were so yummy.  I love dill and I had a ton (well maybe not a ton, but still a lot) of green beans so I thought why not try it?  LeAnn came over and coached me through my first try at canning.  It was fun having her there and it wasn't hard at all. 

Here is the finished product, 12 jars of dilly beans...... 

Every jar sealed, now the wait.  For the best tasting beans you need to let them age so the flavors soak in.  So around Thanksgiving I should be able to taste my work.  I can't wait.

My tomato plants have so many tomatoes on them that the plants have bent the tomato cages so badly that I can't get them to stand up.  I have already given tomatoes to my niece Heather and Dave from my carpool. I have broken off two branches trying to move the plants around to harvest the ripe tomatoes they are so heavy with fruit. I now have a bowl of green tomatoes because I didn't want to throw them out.  I will have to find a recipe that calls for green tomatoes so I can use them.

I'm sure my next try at preserving vegetables will be with tomatoes.  I'm thinking salsa and my own tomato sauce.....we'll see.