Look at the size of that thing! (That's what she said.)

Some of you (or maybe most of you) that are not around me very much may not be aware that I have recently become very interested in growing my own food. Many great reasons for this, including:

1. Reducing my food miles by placing my food source area adjacent to my kitchen.

2. Knowing exactly what chemicals, etc. go into my food (keeping in mind that I don't have any idea what was put into the soil at this house before we moved into it).

3. Getting my food cheaper than from the grocery store, as all it costs is seeds, manure, and water (which is ridiculously underpriced).

4. When the inevitable apocalypse (zombie or zombie-free) occurs within my lifetime, I need to know how to survive in a post-supermarket world, and being able to grow my own food (I already know how to operate a handgun) will be a great help.

I have two gardens going right now, one of them being a community garden in which we are participating. The other is right outside our east wall, and I have planted the "three sisters" in there, corn, beans, and squash. These crops were traditionally planted together by the locals before imperialist Europe arrived on the shores of New England. I have three kinds of corn (blue, sweet, and pop), two kinds of squash (zucchini and yellow), and black beans. These have all grown quite well, and I'm kind of sad I didn't keep a good pictoral track of its progress up to now.

A couple days ago I was rooting around in my plants a little bit. I've been worried about my squash because I always hear that it's a good idea to hand-pollinate your squash for better success (that's what she said) and I've only been finding one gender of flowers on the plants. So I've thought I was going to be devoid of vegetables all summer. I looked down at the base of the plant though, and discovered the giganticest zucchini ever:

This zucchini measured 11 inches long, and it must be at least 2.5 inches diameter. This rocks. I want to use it soon, but I'm a little afraid of eating the first thing I've ever grown for myself.

I looked around in the garden today, just to try to find some more zucchinis, and saw about three more in progress. I discovered my flower-gender conundrum problem. The flowers I was seeing, which were high in my squash plants, were all female. The male flowers, it turns out, are at the base of the plant, which makes sense since the zucchinis end up resting on the ground. I also saw a bunch of bean pods all over my bean plants, which I had not noticed before. I'm not exactly sure when beans are ready, and the pods don't just come off when I pull them lightly yet. We shall see.

Finally, a picture of me, my zucchini, and my lush, lush garden: