wanesta garden project: harvesting

i've actually eaten green beans from my garden. sadly that one tiny harvest of beans was enough for us to share one evening for dinner and no surplus - but they were wonderful and it was fun to actually enjoy something from the garden. its doing quite well, actually - and i take no credit for that. its all mother nature at work back there. all i do is water it.  although i should probably pay attention to my poor leaves, there is a little wormy eating to its heart's content. recommendations on what to use that is earth-friendly?'

so, the dead looking stick thing used to live in my kitchen window and dad and i transplated it and its pot-mates to bigger pots and moved them outdoors. dad said something about it going into sun shock. i think that is maybe what it looks like. however - while i was gone this new beautiful green thing sprouted up from under the soil....so excited to see what that ugly stick was supposed to be and so glad this new guy came into town. to think i almost dug up that dead looking thing. :)

tomatoes are getting pretty big....super excited about THIS harvest. but what will a girl do with all those tomatoes? perhaps i'll make spaghetti sauce again. :)  is canning tomatoes worth the effort?

planted 2 plants of this variety.....each plant got one big fatty pepper on it. :)

planted two plants of this variety.....got a couple tinier peppers coming along, but this one is looking ready to eat!

zucchini is doing fabulous in there. :)  grandma and i actually ate a teeny one on our salad one night during her visit.  so how do i know when they are ready to harvest? anyone?

such a big change from that empty raised garden bed we planted a few months ago!

so, my son is now obsessed with fish. he calls them "eesh". he's also pretty stoked about stickers. his very first sticker was a chiquita banana blue sticker label off the banana the other day. i put it on his hand to see what he would do. well, he walked around all day with that sticker there touching it over and over like a prized possession.  then the lady gave him a sticker at target the next day in the check out line for being so good and cute (and she asked me if he was in preschool.....awesome!). that one didn't last as long since mean mommy took it away as a punishment for insane-toddler behavior syndrome.  today as a reward for being so stellar while running errands i bought him some fish stickers from michaels. needless to say, he is all about it. i'm wondering if maybe these stickers are the way to go for the potty training i think i'm going to try for.  in 2 days he has sat on the big potty 3 times and all three times he has managed to fart on command. that has to mean SOMETHING, right? i mean....he has to get it.  i walked in his room yesterday after his nap and the first thing he said to me was "diaper"...and enough, he had done the number 2 in his diaper. he totally gets it. now i just need to do some research on how to go about potty training a 19 month old. any body have any good resources?

here's a tiny culprit who is eating my leaves. i killed a big brother of his earlier in the day - he was much bigger and fatter. so sad that i want to start quoting "the very hungry caterpillar" in this post.  are those little black things baby worm eggs or poop? and what do i do about these guys? they are really going to town on my tomato leaves. not so much with the rest although they have sampled a little of the pepper leaves. help!