Remember when a few weeks ago mama introduced you to our artichokes?

Well the Doodlebug and I put our big brainiac heads together and we got to thinking: why not introduce you to the rest of our garden too?

You’re with me, right? Ok, here we go!

This here is a photo of my rock-solid six-pack abs. These here are my tomatoes. Dad planted them a few weeks ago when they were quite miniature, like even littler than my head (he says that he and mama are too lazy to start them from seeds, whatever that means). But they just keep growing and growing and gosh, this week they became taller than me! You probably can’t tell but they have some tomatoes already growing on them — some of the plants have little bitty ones that grow all together like ducks in a row, and other plants have bigger ones that grow all by their lonesome (like I did until we started fostering). My favorite thing about tomatoes is that pretty often mama makes them into some kind of dipping stuff and uses chips to eat it. And you know what happens if you use a chip instead of a spoon to eat stuff? You drop chips on the floor, and your Chicken gets a tasty little snack!

Ok. Next up, here are my peppers. We have peppers of all kinds! Some of these little guys are bell peppers, others are poblanos, and others are jalapenos and some other kind of !ay carumba! hot peppers. You can see me keeping my stink-eye on those hot suckers so they don’t try to burn me in this photo. But those bell peppers? They make for some yummy snacks during the summertime. Sometimes mama will be doing some chop chop chopping in the kitchen and if I’m being a very excellent Chick and staying on my spot instead of tangling myself in her feet, she will toss some pepper bits my way. And they make me very happy!

Next, I’d like to introduce you to my greens and my basils! I had to check on them during this photo shoot to make sure there were no kitty-pillars eating them. Dad does NOT like kitty-pillars, even though they are fuzzy and a little bit cute. Anyhow, these are the greens. Sometimes mama puts some of the lettuces in my kongs along with some potatoes and ducks, and although my Doodlebug picks out the lettuces, licks them clean, and makes them into a neat pile on the floor, I am a better boy than him and I eat them up. They have lots of vitamins!

I am growing the basil more for mama and dad than for myself, because I honestly don’t care for it too much. But every time I will them to bring some basil inside, it makes them want to cook pasta! And you know why I love them cooking pasta? Because sometimes they let me chomp on a dry piece, and sometimes they let me slurp up a wet piece like Lady and the Tramp. Yummy!

Moving right along, I’d like you to meet my miniature cantalopes and my green beans (and behind them, my cilantroes, my chives, my thymes, and my oreganoes). Sometimes I get to snack on cantalopes and I love it so much that I dream about them at night. Mama and dad picked out mini cantalopes to put in our garden — I’m not sure why, but I bet it’s because I will be able to fit them in my mouth whole, without having to bother mama with cutting them up. And I’ve also heard from my dog trainer friends that cantalope can be good for chilling out a dog that worries, isn’t that cool?

Right behind the melon vines are my new green beans. We planted those from tiny little seeds just about a week and a half ago, and look how big they’ve become! I wonder if mama is putting some kind of growth horomones in the dirt, or what. Or maybe they just know that they are one of only five foods that my Doodlebug can eat, so they’re in a rush to come up? Anyhow, here they are!

Ok, let’s see . . . next we have my onions. I can’t say too much about onions, because I heard they are bad for dogs. Plus, they smell gross and make mama very, very sad when she does her chop, chop, chop to them. But she insisted that I grow them for her anyway, so here they are, almost ready to pick!

And last but not least, my cucumbers! They are those big, pretty-leafed ones right behind me in this here photo. I started those from seeds too, and they came up in a flash. I hope they start giving me cucumbers soon! I love cucumbers to eat plain when I’m hungry, or to slice and lay over my eyes when they’re tired and puffy (my eyes, not the cucumbers). And most of all, I like cucumbers when mama puts them in the big noisy kitchen machine that goes vroom-vroom and makes them into Guss-patch-yo. She doesn’t ever let me have a whole bowl or glass of it, but she does let me lick the pitcher. Nothing says summertime like a Guss-patch-yo pitcher to clean!

Well, that’s most of my garden. The other things I have are some rosemaries, some okras, mints, and some carrots. But they’re all pretty camera-shy, so I didn’t want to make them pose. I hope you enjoyed my garden tour, see you next week!