garden in midsummer

My garden is a mixed bag this year, so far. The broccoli is doing very well; I have heads as big as small iceberg lettuce! No sign of aphids, and I'll pick some tomorrow to get the first taste. I love broccoli raw, in a salad, or with ranch dip. Ella eats it raw, right from the garden. In fact, that's the only way she'll eat it. The first row of green beans has small beans ready to be picked tomorrow. I'm looking forward to their tender flavor.
The eggplants on the other hand, haven't even started to grow. It's as if they just stopped growing at planting stage. The tomatoes are growing and setting fruit, but now the bottom leaves are beginning to get yellow. It could be that early blight that I read about in the paper. I'll have to look up what that looks like. I certainly don't want to be the one to spread a disease, but I sure would hate to lose the plants. It's fortunate that my daughter also grows tomatoes for us. So far, hers aren't affected.
Weeds are being kept at bay by the straw mulch! There are a few that have come through the thin spots, but it's so easy to just pull them and let them die on top of the straw. Satisfying, in fact.
Gardeners are among the world's optimists, and I'm holding out to see what happens by fall.