Wait - Don't you have a garden?

Lately I've been trying to forget about my vegetable garden because, frankly, it's just sad out there.

Bacterial wilt got a hold of the pumpkin plant a month or so ago and just starting swinging it's nasty wilty wrecking ball all through the honeydudes and cukes to the point where I thought everything would croak and die overnight and I'd be left with nothing but fruit flies and dried vines in the beds.

How sad is that?!

Well, I don't want to jinx myself but we may, MAY, just be seeing some recovery out there. Not a lot, and nothing like the massive growth we saw last year, but there might be enough hope to get me through the summer crop season without having to throw myself headlong from the newly reconstructed roof.

So, with all my parts crossed, I tippy-toed out to the garden this morning (extra hard since my toes were crossed, too) hoping with all my might that there might be something, ANYTHING, in the garden to cheer me up and keep me from feeling like the world's biggest black-thumb-having garden loser.

Lucky for the new roof, I saw this:

Our first Better Boy tomato starting to turn


A volunteer spaghetti squash creeping over from our neighbor's yard.


A honeydew ALIVE on the vine.
Looks like only one of three honeydew plants got The Wilt.

Unwilty and perfectly spotted Moon and Stars watermelons putting out one million blooms. Not that I wouldn't like to see a friggen fruit setting on this plant, but I'll take health anyway I can get it.


And a lone vibrant sunflower blooming to it's heart content.
Although very nearly in the shadow of our neighbors sunflower hedgerow.
The nerve.

So, there wasn't any roof diving, and it appears as though we may have a few vegetables to call our own this summer, but I'm still not super excited. I mean, I'm very proud of these few determined plants and will happily chomp down whatever they produce, but after last summer's obscene bounty, I'll admit to the tiniest bit of disappointment.

To ward off this disappointment though, I have 10 pounds of freshly picked (now frozen) blackberries awaiting their turn in the canner. For this weekend I have decided to give the gardening woes the finger and cheer myself over a steaming pot of blackberry jam. Scary part is, I've never put up jam before, so this could be a horrible and sticky mistake if it goes awry, but I figure it's better than coveting thy neighbor's desirably overgrown garden and accidently giving them the finger. Especially since one of the few healthy plants in my garden (sunflowers) was a gift from them.

Let us all think good thoughts about successfully canned blackberry jam cooling beautifully in the breakfast nook, shall we?