I've never been known for my ability to keep plants alive, but luckily this year we live next to a guy who LOVES to garden. Seriously. He once told me with a straight face, "Just an hour a day weeding and you won't have any problems." But between his help and the ability of the Midwest to grow just about anything, we have an actual garden this year!
You can just barely see the fence separating the two gardens. The corn, broccoli, and tomatoes are courtesy of him (with the expectation that we will weed, water, and harvest). We planted the zucchini, pumpkins, and peppers. The raspberries were there and are AWESOME. 
The inspiration and ultimate reason we chose this house. Those are regular and dark raspberries. So delicious, especially over ice cream. Mmmm!
This is one of two mutant zucchinis I stumbled across. Shortly after this E started pretending it was a bazooka.
Further proof of just how mutant. I was just reading about a Midwest tradition where people try to pawn off zucchini to just about anyone. Barbara Kingsolver wrote that this is the only time of year that they lock their car because otherwise someone will fill it with zucchini. And for you who were wondering, August 8th is "Leave a zucchini on your neighbor's porch and run" day.
E enjoying a fresh lunch of blue-box Mac n' Cheese (whole grain!) and homegrown, just picked, organic broccoli. I love this having a garden thing.
Last but not least, our great landlords gave E this shirt and he's THRILLED. He'd wear it 24/7 if he could. One of his teachers taught him the "Spidey hand" and so now he runs around shooting us with webs. I love having a boy. I really love having this crazy boy.
