Our Garden: Summer 2016

This was our garden back in April... 

 freshly planted tomato plants

front row of baby pepper plants, then a column of cabbage, swiss chard, kale, and radicchio

And this is our current garden... lots of growth since April!  

 these are our tomato plants (also pictured is my #1 tomato thief)

caught...  red-mouthed??

 these are my pole beans (left) and baby cucumbers (right), both are growing up a trellis on the back side of the tomatoes.

This is my other bed.  The front row of peppers and a back row of okra. 

 In the middle you can see my eggplant and swiss chard. 

Overall this year, we have had a lot of success with our tomatoes (Sweet 100 and Juliet and Husky Cherry Red) as well as with our swiss chard.  I'm hoping we'll begin harvesting some cukes in a week or two.  A few of my plants have suffered from not having enough fertilizer or organic matter in the soil.  I tried to remedy that mid-season by adding some of our compost, but I need to do a better job of adding it in before planting next year.  (I also had some zucchini planted earlier in the season, but a vine borer got them before I realized it.)

tomato thief caught again...  

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FFF: Our Garden Update, May 2015

Here is a garden update from earlier this week...

I should give a disclaimer that we planted our garden a few weeks earlier than the frost dates suggested, which could've been an absolute failure, but it worked out okay down here because we've had a warmer than average Spring.  So technically our garden has been growing for around 1 month now, and it has already been fertilized once. (We planted most everything the first week and a half of April, and I fertilized 2 weeks ago.  I use the fish emulsion fertilizer, so I need to do it again soon..)

 One of my garden helpers, watering the squash plants.  See those blooms?

Our bachelor buttons are blooming!

We found this little guy today.  Not sure what he is, but he was fun for Enoch to play with, and now he is no longer in my garden.  

Our cucumbers have found the trellis and are putting out blooms!

Our pole beans (Rattlesnake beans) have found their trellis.  The bush beans are in there too on the other side of the bucket and are also growing (Royalty Purple Pod beans)!

Our first little pepper is growing.

And our tomato plants have blooms (the cherry tomatoes).

Onions are growing a little.

A few strawberries are ripening, though critters usually get them before we are able to enjoy them.

Working on another project... he's a hard worker, this one, and he just loves being outside.

Look how tall our cherry tomatoes are!!  (The better boys in the other bed aren't doing as well because they get less sun... that could be a problem!)

My other garden helper... in her jammies... don't judge, you know she's cute.

Alaythia was inside asleep while we watered.  On the mornings when she sleeps in a little, we scramble outside to enjoy some shady time in the front yard until she wakes up.  This happens a few times per week, and I so relish those times of getting my hands dirty and my feet wet with my big kids.  :)

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Spring Garden 2015 (in the beginning)

Here are some photos to document the beginnings of our garden this year.

These carrots were so exciting to harvest (fall crop)!  They really gave me incentive to work hard on getting our summer garden going since it often yields such delicious foods!

Doing our garden prep of cleaning out the beds & readying the soil.

Here is what we got in the ground:

Our front bed is mainly dedicated to some Better Boy tomatoes as well as flowers (these are mainly cool season flowers, to be replaced soon by summer flowers).

Around on the side we have a good stand of Bachelor Buttons that re-seeded themselves.

Further down we planted some cucumbers (they will grow up that trellis).

And on the end we put squash plants in.

On the other side of that walkway is where our buckets are.  This year they have beans in them (bush & pole)!

And last but certainly not least is my 4x8' raised bed, which is mainly dedicated to our favorites: cherry tomatoes (8 of them!).  There are also a few pepper plants and onions tucked in there.  And in the back center are a few bunches of leaf lettuce which are waiting to be harvested (they were our other fall crop).

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FFF: A big pile of dirt

This morning a dump truck arrived at our house with a load of planter's mix soil.  :)  Eventually I'm hoping it will make my vegetables happy, but one thing is for certain... Today, it made my Little Man pretty happy.  ;)  

Here's the dump truck backing in.  We had to pay a delivery fee, but as one friend has already noted, that fee was well worth it just to have this big red dump truck in our yard, going up high, for a few minutes.  (and also well worth it considering we didn't have to go to the trouble of borrowing a truck/trailer and then cleaning it back out)

Here's a video of Enoch helping shovel the dirt into our planter bed.  Isn't his little mini-shovel so cute? 


This was Sweet Girl's home for part of the morning (until she got tired).  I think she actually enjoyed the big dump truck too, which might have something to do with her big brother teaching her important things...  ;)

I should have more photos up shortly of all the holes we've been digging (and will soon be filling)... until then, Hugh's gonna rest his weary muscles and I'm gonna do the same.  :)

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Enoch Live: A rainy morning in the garden

Enoch & I played in the rain this morning while picking our tomato harvest. He enjoyed the "wain" and the garden-fresh grape tomatoes... I think he managed to eat almost half of the harvest (what you see in the colander is the post-Enoch harvest)! :)

So far we've only had grape tomatoes ripen, but I have 1 cucumber and a few other tomato types that are close to being ready now. And my pepper plants have nickel sized peppers growing all over them too. Mmm.. Not much like fresh, home grown veggies!

(About the only problem I've had so far with this year's garden has been yellowing leaves on the bottom of my tomato plants. I'm still not sure if it's a natural tomato thing, blight, or a Nitrogen deficiency.. Any thoughts from other gardeners out there? Most of the yellow leaves do NOT have spots, but a few do.)

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