Growin' that garden yo

Have you tried these little yellow and orange pear tomatoes?  I'm not the biggest tomato lover, but when my mother in law gave us a bucket of these the first year we were married I love them so much I was convinced I needed to grow my own crop one day.  That's why I'm so happy in the photo.  We have two of these plants now and I was super giddy when my husband showed me there were two ripe ones.  (That red one is just a roma.  Still good though.)

I've had very little experience working in a yard in my lifetime.  I don't know much about anything really.  One of the only experiences I can recall of 'working the land' was when my parents dropped us off on a farm with my cousins when we were young so we could hoe beets.  Something about learning to work hard...  I'm still a very lazy person, but I did learn that if you want to get rid of a swarm of gnats you can walk up to a buddy, duck down when you are passing, and leave the swarm confused and sticking around the head of the new victim.   Either that or hold your hoe up really high and maybe the bugs will hang out above you if they are tricked into thinking the hoe is your head.  

But I have this seed deep deep inside of me that really yearns to learn more, and figure out how to enjoy that hard work.

Well, here was our chance.  In December we had a huge wind storm roll through and take out the three giant pine trees that walled the back of our yard.  The photo above shows what was left behind in their absence.  Lots of sticks, pine needles, and rocks.  We spent a few months collecting rocks and raking raking raking.  Finally in May we planted our little garden.  All those rocks came into lovely use as garden borders.

Then we watered.

And waited.  And watched.

And KAPOW!

Thinks grew!

Like this baby watermelon that I've taken a mother-like affection to.

But it isn't all perfect.

We obviously planted about a million and one too many plants into our tiny space than was necessary.  We just got over-eager with our different options and decided to choose them all.  That pumpkin vine has taken residence all the way across the garden and through the fence.  I guess it thought the only place to grow good pumpkins was not in our yard.  You live and you learn.

Do any of you know what would cause some tomatoes to do this?  They look burned I think.  But I'm guessing it's some sort of bug?

And are onions supposed to be this much out of the ground?  

So that's it!  From the wind-ruined back yard to over planted jungle.  Yay!

So are you guys planting gardens?  Or working on some other summer project?  Please let me see!