This year Drew has had absolutely no help from my end but he is still determined to get us a great garden going. By the time Baby Joel comes we should be able to just water and harvest. Here is an overview of the set up so far.
Moving in closer…
Cucumbers
Cherry Tomatoes
Roma Tomatoes
Hot peppers
Onions
New raspberry bush
Herbs
We counted 6 lemons forming on our lemon tree.
Lemon tree
One of the fun activities for our weekend was to shell all the beans that we had dried up in our loft. A throwback 90’s play list helped us pass the time (think Space Jam and Spice Girls). Last year we had issues with mold on our beans and only got one quesadilla worth of the little suckers. Not so this year.
Other than that, we have been slowly collecting cherry tomatoes for salsa, as well as a few other hold outs in the garden.
After coming back from vacation we had a few surprises in the garden. One of them was a crazy amount of weeds that had taken over after the warm week. The other was a decent harvest of peas, some berries, a pepper, carrots and beets.
For dinner we had a colorful meal of pea soup and beet and carrot salad. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but this pea soup was a wonderful lime green.
Don’t forget the dessert.
We are starting to get excited about the garden as each bed is filled. Our tomatoes and peppers that we planted too early are not doing well. We decided to buy a few seedlings from the Plant Kingdom to supplement. Here is a look at the fruit and veggies.
Peppers
Tomato
Corn and Squash
Cauliflower
Carrots
Beets
Peas
Strawberry
Blueberry
Currants
We have a new addition to our family. The lemon tree! See the little lemon already forming?
The beets are coming up. Yes, I need to weed.
Peas are grabbing onto the trellis.
And Drew transplanted the corn.
Things are quiet now and it seems like a good time to evaluate our first year garden. I’ve compiled all of my notes below to help me plan for next year.
Tomatoes: These grew very well. Struggled a little with blossom-end rot and with rodents eating them before they could ripen. We had to bring them all in while still green and ripen them in paper bags.
Lettuce: The spring crop was great. Next year I want to plant in succession so that it isn’t all mature at the same time. The summer lettuce never grew. It must be too hot.
Onions: Did not do well. Next year try planting them deeper.
Bell Peppers: Also did not do well. Next year do not plant them next to the tomato plants as they are too shaded. Also try planting more.
Cucumbers: A great producer! We did have the cucumber beetle come a give the plants bacterial wilt. I’ve heard to cover the cucumbers until they bloom to keep the beetles away.
Tomatillos: We did not give them a trellis and it fell over and broke. Definitely want to try again with support.
Jalapenos: Did way too well. We had to pull them up before they were even done producing because we had a ton of jalapenos. Next year only plant 2 jalapeno plants.
Beans: They grew well. We want to plant more beans next year. We also need to start them earlier so that they have time to dry on the vine before frost comes so we can get fresh and dried beans.
Patty-pan Squash: Horrible. We only got one. Next year we should try planting in deeper mounds and maybe get a different kind.
Spaghetti squash: We got one, but it may have been affected by the bacterial wilt because we never got another. We would like to try more of these.
Corn: Was all eaten by something. Next year start indoors.
Kale: It’s growing well in the raised bed, but not the pots. Try to plant earlier next year and plant more.
Cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, Cauliflower: All of these were planted too late and are either dead or barely hanging on now that it is winter.
Raspberries: Red are doing great, black are planted in too shaded of a spot.
The other plants all did well but we don’t plan on planting eggplant, okra, and all the different kinds of tomatoes again. Some new items we want for next year are:
-Carrots, beets, strawberries, blueberries, sunflowers and peas.
I’d say overall it was a success!
We’ve been collecting and freezing raspberries all summer long. Last night, we finally had five cups of raspberries and were able to try our hand at making jam. Drew mashed all the berries and mixed them with sugar.
We then took turns stirring for the next half hour.
Willis was not much help at this time.
Once it started to gel, we put it in our jars and processed them in the water bath. Drew and I snuck a taste off the stirring spoon and it was quite delicious!
In one of our seed orders we received a free packet of melon seeds. We planted it out front in the box around our tree, not thinking anything would happen. We just found a couple of these guys!
The Congo Trindad pepper has ripened in our backyard. When I researched more about it I found out it was a type of habanero pepper. Yikes! That’s seven notches up from a jalapeno. A jalapeno is between 2.500-8,000 scoville units while the Congo Trinidad pepper is between 150,000-300,000 scoville units. The only thing I can think to do with these is make hot sauce.
Upstairs the Brussels Sprouts (left), Cauliflower (middle), and Kale (right) are sprouting as the beginning of my fall crop.
We harvested a nice variety of goodies this weekend; tomatoes, okra, peppers, hot peppers, and cherry tomatoes.
The Zuta peppers stole the show. I think they turned such a beautiful color. To use them, we made a deconstructed stuffed pepper and a vegetable quesadilla. They had an even better flavor than bell peppers, which works out well since my bell peppers are doing miserably.
Botinecka Zuta Peppers
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