Gardening Update

I want to report on the ups and downs of gardening. First lets get the "downs" out of the way. Some type of green, worm-like creature has invaded the broccoli (thanks to Julie for pointing this out). Jon and I have been diligently removing worms and eggs and it now appears that they have become tired of our efforts and moved on to another garden. Secondly, we headed to Grand Rapids for the weekend and returned to find that the broccoli had flowered! Help! Is this normal? Should I have harvested it last week? If I whack off the flowering heads will more grow back or is that it for this year? (Julie and Alison, I need you to weigh in on this). Finally, Aspen has discovered that the garden is a short-cut to other interesting parts of the backyard and has created a nice little trail through the onions. Arghhh!
On to the "ups". I made my first lettuce salad from my garden complete with the first strawberries I was able to harvest. That was really cool and rewarding. The tomato plants are huge...I can't wait until I have ripe tomatoes. It looks like one zucchini plant came up from the dozen or so seeds I planted. If I do it right, it should produce Jon's favorite vegetable. Finally, a couple of spinach plants seemed to have survived (I thought they were all dead). I should be able to mix a few leaves in with the lettuce for variety. That's all for now...