Remember those bushels of tomatoes I joked about?

Yeah, I laughed when I mentioned having to give away bushels of tomatoes.  I laugh no more.

We've got three (THREE!) tomato plants and they all seem to be doing *very* well.

This is one section of the huge tomato corner of the yard.  

In addition to the "regular sized" tomatoes, there are two other plants with cherry tomatoes that are flourishing (and so heavy that I think they will crush the wire thing they are growing around... seriously.)

Here's a close up of the grapes.  Now imagine this spanning about 6 feet tall and about
15 feet wide (if not more!) and you'll have an idea of how it looks.

This is the pumpkin plant that seems to have outgrown the garden.  

And it's taking over the back of the yard.  There's also a vine growing toward the fence with the grapes. 

I hope our neighbor, Max, thinks it's super cool to have our pumpkins growing in his yard. 

Here it is again from a different view. You can see the grapes on the left and the vine growing into them.
(Just ignore the mini van on the right.  I don't think we should move it just now as the pumpkins have attached their little vines to the bumper.  Note to self: Move the van away from the pumpkins next year.)

Here's an *actual* pumpkin.  Who knew we would actually be successful in growing them!  This pumpkin also just happens to be growing on the vine currently attempting to reach the other side of the yard.  I posted those pictures above.   John's currently mowing around the vine.

And here's a more obedient vine, growing inside of the garden.  

It looks like we'll have a pumpkin on this one too!

Here's the watermelon plant.   And a real, live, actual WATERMELON is growing!  This was a shocker.  

I can't wait to see how this tastes!

Here's the watermelon again.  Same one, looks like we've only got one so far but it's lookin' good!

I love, love, LOVE my cucumber plant.  It's growing so well; I think I've already gotten 10 cucumbers off of it... and it seems like there are more to pick each day.  There's one ready to eat showing at the bottom of this picture.  Yum

Just a funny shape for the cucumber.

And finally, my pepper plant. 

These have been really good on tacos.  

Unfortunately, I'm not really into cooking with peppers but I've been able to give some away.  I don't know why I grew this plant... I guess I wanted something I wouldn't be too disappointed about if it didn't work.  I did *not* need to worry.

So that's it.  The quick recap.  I think we'll end up harvesting tons of tomatoes this week alone - John's already been pulling cherry tomatos and he and Katie eat them up quickly.  I'm more excited about my cucumbers and that watermelon!  And if we can get two pumpkins, I'll be thrilled... the kids can decorate them for Halloween and we won't have to buy any.

On another note, I think Katie has a hearing problem.  Her talking voice and her yelling voice are strangely similar.

On yet another note, I just pulled out the brand new package of mint chocolate chip ice cream I bought today (the only flavor I really like, all others are merely tolerated) and opened it up.  And then stared at it because it didn't look like mint chocolate chip... Sure it was mint green but someone had played a horrible joke.  Someone had switched it for mint chocolate COOKIE.  This was not funny.  

I know I tossed it into my cart and I realize that the ice cream maker isn't required to include a disclaimer, although something along these lines (which would have been helpful in bolded, red font... underlined) would have been helpful:

 *This is not mint chocolate CHIP.  It's the evil cousin of mint chocolate chip.  Do not buy this if you're expecting minty chocolaty crunch, because you will not get it here*

Because if they had included this disclaimer instead of relying on me to, ahem, more carefully read the flavor name on the container, I would not have bought it.   I would have stayed true to my mint chocolate chip goodness and not turned to the dark side.  Because I'm eating it as I type... and I'm thinking that *maybe* I could *start* buying two ice cream flavors...  Because *maybe* mint chocolate cookie isn't evil.

Maybe it's just... misunderstood.