The day's bounty from the garden

This is the time of the summer when the toil of spring planting begins to pay off in dividends of bountiful fruits and flowers. Summer squash, onions and pole beans have been providing the dinner vegetable for the last week and I've even managed to pick a couple of handfuls of blackberries before the birds and squirrels got to them. Abundant basil has provided the first of many pesto preparations. Soon tomatoes, beets, cucumbers and peppers will add to the harvest.

There is nothing like going out to the garden and picking out what will become the evening's dinner or the next day's zucchini cake and blackberry pie. Everything is coming along well, despite my annoying habit of planting everything too close together. Unfortunately, I've just spotted the first of the Japanese beetles. These destructive pests will decimate my beans especially, and I foresee many hours of handpicking the beetles and plopping them into a jar of white vinegar. I don't use traps, as that tends to draw more of them from the area. Hopefully, I wil be able to keep up with the infestation and not lose all my bean harvest.