I check the growth of my veggies every day.  Yes, I’m impatient for them to ripen.  So far it’s bugs two, me one.  The bugs have managed to destroy one patty pan squash and an Ancho pepper.  I’d been eyeing up that pepper every day since it was a blossom.  By the time it grew to the size of my thumb, some bug managed to nibble a large hole into it. 

     I declared war.  At night I haunted the garden by flashlight, picking bugs off the plants and depositing them into a jar filled with soapy water.  I rubbed the same mixture onto the tiny peppers every night.  Now I have quite a few nice sized peppers that will soon be ready to pick and they have no holes in them.

     The melon and cucumber plants are also bug free now and growing with wild abandon.  I have pea sized watermelons and cantaloupes on the vines.  There are enough baby cucumbers out there to choke a horse or fill a large gherkin pickle jar.

     There will be at least three eggplants since that’s how many blossoms we have today.  It makes me glad that I have my mother’s moussakka recipe.  That is a real treat.