Look at the green garden monster grooooooow. Its been raining on and off for the last couple of weeks. So I really haven’t needed to use the irrigation system that I set-up around the yard. So for now, I’ll call that a bonus.

Its looking like I should have an insane amount of pickling cucumbers this year, with the first cucumber harvested today. But I’ve got to tell you, these pickling cucumbers are growing like weeds everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Up the corn stalks, smothering the pepper plants, up the rabbit fence and on and on. This year I planted the cucumbers as ground cover, instead of training them to grow vertically. And after what I’ve seen so far, I’m not going back to vertical growing for cucumber for totally exposed outdoor growing. But if I ever got a hoophouse with some 50% shade cloth, I’d give vertical growing for cucumber another try, kind of like this pic.

And speaking of sweet corn, check out all the ears on the stalks. This should also be a bumper crop for the first time that I’ve ever grown corn. And its looking like it might be only another couple of weeks before I can pick a few ears for dinner, which is going to be awesome.

OK, here is something a little bit on the strange side. I was trying to weed around the beets (or what’s left of the beets) when I ran into this huge insect. I really don’t know if it’s a moth, or what it is. But this little bugger wasn’t moving to save its life, so that was how I was able to get the close-up shots. It must have been close to 2” long from its head to the end of its abdomen. If you know what the heck this is, please let me know, because I’m a little curious myself.