Ahh, spring...or is it now summer?

While the rest of the country enjoys lovely spring weather, we have officially breached the 100 degree mark. Our temps are not expected to drop back down until the late fall (mid-October for those not in AZ). On the bright side (isn't it always bright in AZ?), our garden is in full swing.

We pulled 40, yes 40 tomatoes off on Saturday, and we've got another 2-3 dozen green ones (mmm, fried green tomatoes). We put up all of those yielding 6 pints of tomatoes (crushed, stewed, and whole), they are now chilling in our free-standing freezer along with a pint of wax beans from Monday.

Thus far we've gotten 6 zucchini, loosing only 1 to birds before we netted them. And we were very pleasantly surprised by our pumpkins. Last fall I saved the seeds from a store bought sugar pumpkin, we planted those not sure what would happen (you never know if your produce has been irradiated). But they are going strong. We've got at least three the size of baseballs, and a couple more of various smaller sizes. I am sooo excited for pumpkin pie, bread, cookies, bars...

I think that I had a little too much fun with my pickings from Monday. Sometimes you need to play with your food. Hum, I might make this my profile pic, any thoughts?

And finally, my mimosa tree has started to bloom. Yes it makes a mess in the fall (neither Eric nor our neighbor like it), but it is so beautiful in the summer, hot pink against bright green. And the smell is heavenly. We planted some butterfly flowers, dame's rocket, and dwarf dahlias under it, hopefully next spring it will be awash in color.