How's the garden, you ask?

We have extremely happy and exciting news to share with you about the garden. Lil Pig took the pictures below of our little piece of earth that is growing and growing and growing! We can't hardly wait to taste the cherry tomatoes, big beef tomatoes, strawberries, squash, and zucchini! Just look at how fast everything is growing!

This is the first flower on our strawberry plants. Lil Pig wanted to pick it, but I told her she wasn't allowed because it was needed in order to grow the strawberries.

Here is another shot. If you look closely you can see another flower starting to grow in the background. You may have to click on the pictures for a closer view.

This is the flower starting to grow on our squash, and I didn't even see it at first, Lil Pig did. She's so good at spotting them! We were all afraid that the squash wouldn't make it, but it's a fighter and looks like it's going to make it after all!

Here is another shot of the flower from the squash. There are more underneath, but no one could get to them...not even Lil Pig yet.

This is from our strawberry plant. It is growing new leaves!

And look what else Lil Pig found! A small strawberry!! Lil Pig squealed with delight once she saw this and it really did take all of our coaxing to get her to leave it alone. We told her it wasn't ready yet. She checks on it every hour practically. She's afraid the birds will eat it since it's so bright red against all the browns and greens.

This is one of the tomato plants in our Ace Planter. This one has really shot up. It's supposed to hang down, but we think it will do that once the fruit starts to grow.

Another shot of the flower on the squash from a different angle.

Here are some of the tomato plants in the Topsy Turvy Tomato Tree stand. Lil Pig thinks they are going to grow to be the size of real trees and she's worried about how they are going to fit on the balcony. I keep telling her that we'll have to wait and see how big they grow before we decide we need to move. She's so sweet.

Another tomato plant. We are going to have lots of tomatoes I think.

This is a cherry tomato plant that has just flourished since we planted it.

After we watered the garden and took pictures, Lil Pig and I went just inside the sliding glass door and sat down to look at the garden. We left the sliding glass door open, but closed the screen so we could get a nice breeze but not get the bugs or dirt inside. After about twenty minutes Lil Pig asked me if I thought any bees would come by to get the nectar from our strawberry flower. Before I could answer, a huge wasp flies right up to the screen door...only it wasn't outside. It was inside the house with us!! We both ran away while the wasp crawled on the screen door trying to find a way out. I managed to slowly open the screen door and close the sliding glass door so it could find its way out. Lil Pig raced for the camera. She thought it would be an excellent opportunity for a photo.

Here is a picture of the wasp in between the sliding glass door and the screen. It took him a while to find his way out, but eventually he did.

Here is a close-up. Lil Pig was more brave than I was. Even though the door was closed, I was still nervous about letting her get so close to it. Once it crawled out of the screen door, it slowly flew away and Lil Pig waved goodbye to it as it left. I guess we don't have to worry about bees coming for the flower now!