Waiting for summer vegetables

I know they're coming. The summer vegetables, that is.

I'm waiting for squash, tomatoes, and beans, in particular, having just about eaten my fill of greens and lettuce. My gardening companion (a good vegetable eater) commented this evening that he needs to eat lettuce at every meal, after putting away yet more freshly-washed and spun leaves. (These were actually harvested as one of the props for a couple of 1st grade plant classes, illustrating plant diversity -- they were impressed by the deer tongue, purple-tingled, and speckled lettuces, I think!)

My gardening friends (hrrmph, they know who they are) that were early planters are already seeing zucchini flowers, at the same time mine barely have 4 or 5 leaves (I was late in planting). This may be a challenging squash vine borer year; the C. moschata squash (winter squash and tromboncino) will sail through probably, but I guess I can hope that the colder than usual winter had a detrimental effect on overwintering larvae, for the Ronde de Nice and pattypan squash.

I've started to harvest heads of garlic to use fresh. The larger harvest to dry and keep will come a bit later. But in the meantime, we'll enjoy fresh -- yum. We have more than enough (see photo -- think about the patches here in the main vegetable garden multiplied by 4). I should be able to plant some later sowings of squash and beans in these patches!