Mandatory unpaid day off today. Fortunately the weather is perfect, and my cough has slightly diminished. I started my day by going to the OB clinic to do the blood draw for my glucose test. Do I have gestational diabetes? Probably not, but it seems that the test they do for this condition is notorious for lots of false positives. I don’t look forward to that.

I went to the mall following my appt and just wandered around for a while. Eventually I found a lightweight nightgown that actually fits my giant tummy. I also picked up another couple of bras, these with no underwires. 40D, bitches. I really do not feel like they are that big. But I have always been a small C. I also don’t feel like I have gained over thirty pounds, but apparently I have. Sigh. What I get for being small and skinny to begin with, I guess. And my body’s proclivity for hanging on tightly to every single calorie. Not to mention that fact that I simply cannot do cardio exercise anymore. It’s an effort just to climb the stairs.

I went home and watered the garden. Our tomato plants are ridiculous. They are now as tall as me, and the branches are starting to droop with clusters of green fruit. There seem to be hundreds more yellow flowers waiting to turn into tomatoes. We’ll need to bring in a structural engineer to figure out how to prop these things up; there seems to be no end in sight to their fecundity. They are casting a shadow over my two little pepper plants.

The cucumbers are also flourishing wildly. At their base, they have sprouted big flowers and a few prickly baby cukes. The leaves are wide and green, and long viney tendrils are climbing from the garden wall.

Same for the acorn squash, my only fall plant so far, which is also extremely healthy. I’m actually a bit worried this one will start to take over. Fortunately it’s right next to the radish bed, and I have decided to stop planting radishes to make more room for the squash.

Last year’s tomatoes were pitiful. I blame the cold spring/early summer, the amount of daylight they received on the front of the house, and the fact that they were planted in crappy, small pots.

This year’s crop has a lot going for it. I began with good (and cheap) starters from the farmer’s market. I planted them in May in a raised garden bed — on the sunniest side of the house — that had been fortified with our home-cooked compost. June was extremely hot, and I watered the garden almost daily. I’ve given the plants a couple of epsom salt treatments. Now it seems I may need to prune some of the fruitless branches back, just to take some weight off. I am so excited for these babies to start to turn red.

Need to pick the sugar snap peas again, too. And I harvested six carrots the other night. They were awesome. I peeled them and ate them with some hummus. These two crops I just planted from seed packets. Very easy and cheap to grow. Though I wish I had sown the carrots in continual two-week phases. I won’t have any new ones for a while after I pick my first row.

I guess that’s it for my garden update.

I should update this thing more often. I know hardly anyone reads it, but it is nice to have a little record to look back on, for my own personal use.

Baby has been kicking a lot, in fact she is right now as I type. She’s having a great time in there.