I was wandering through the vegetable garden Saturday afternoon and was surprised to see asparagus up.

I bought our pea seeds yesterday. Another sign of spring, even though it is cold outside.

Maybe it's Michelle Obama. Maybe it's the economy. But vegetable gardens are everywhere.

Nancy is about to start our vegetable seedlings.

Nancy and I ordered our seeds, vegetable seedlings and a few ornamental plants on Sunday.

The fishing trip is over.

As you read this, I am fishing.

Nancy and I ate our last peaches for breakfast this morning.

The peaches and tomatoes are coming in.

When vegetable gardeners get too busy, food goes to waste.

I picked our first full-size tomato on Tuesday.

Maeve has eaten her first watermelon from our garden.

I just ate peas as the main vegetable for my sixth straight evening meal.

Nancy and I just pulled the row covers off of our plants.

I'm back from a week's vacation, fly-fishing and gardening.

Memorial Day weekend is usually a gardener's busiest of the year.

Our vegetable garden's cool weather crops are all in.

Never tell yourself you've caught up.

I'm back. The fishing was slow, but I did catch one decent fish - a 14-inch landlocked salmon - and some smaller ones as well. Unfortunately, I caught the larger one Monday, the day that catch-and-release-only-season began, so I had to put it back. No streamside fish dinner.

I spent the entire weekend at home and spent a total of 45 minutes mowing the lawn and another half hour picking tomatoes and peppers.

A walk through the vegetable garden tells me I am going be busy harvesting this weekend.

I picked two pints of raspberries yesterday, bringing us to 60 pints for the season, and while we will get a few more berries, it will likely be a half pint at a time for a couple more weeks.

It's getting toward mid-August and I need my tomatoes. My garden has produced three cherry-sized tomatoes so far this year.

I was in the garden Saturday morning for the first time in a week and glanced over to the raspberries. Work and other commitments kept me away from the garden. I was surprised to see a lot of red from the distance.

Taking a few days away from the garden can give you a new perspective. I was away fishing over the weekend – two smallish rainbows, caught and released, from the upper Androscoggin – and the soggy Monday and Tuesday morning meant I was out of the garden for almost five days.

Busy weekend.

Fought the woodchucks and they are in hiding or have gone to their cottage at the lake for the Fourth of July weekend. But not before they ate all our lettuce and our neighbor's beans.

We have pods on the pea vines, but they are flat. Tradition says we need peas for the Fourth of July, only a week away. It's going to be close.

I went out in the garden today and discovered leaves on my sweet potatoes. I silently cheered. It was early and I did not want to wake my neighbors.

We picked our first strawberries of the season Sunday night. Not many, just enough to put on our cereal, and we don't expect to have a great season because our beds are in transition. But finding and picking the berries was a great way to end a productive weekend in the garden.

The vegetable garden is making progress. The sweet potato plants finally arrived in the mail yesterday, so everything is in hand. We got a lot of the tomato and pepper transplants, more than half the potatoes and some vining crops in.

The vegetable part of the garden is going well – if slowly. Our peas are up and looking good, but have not gotten to a second planting. We got most of the tomatoes and peppers in and under row covers last weekend.

My onions are making good progress. At least most of them. They seem to like the damp weather – within limits.

We will be growing artichokes for the first time this year. Not for the food, but for the looks of the plant.

Welcome aboard. You are invited to a personal viewing of my gardening season.

And the season has begun. I have eaten the first food from my garden this year. The asparagus is up.