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I hope I can keep up with this page. Summertime is extremely busy for us, here. I want to show our garden from the time
we plant it, through the growing stages and then harvest time and even our canning/freezing process. We don't have as much
room as we'd like for the garden, so, we make do with the space that we have. We have 200 strawberry plants that take up a
lot of space. Along with the strawberries, we've also planted corn, peas, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers
and several varieties of peppers. We grew our tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and peppers in our greenhouse, so, we had a little
headstart on those plants. I will try and add pictures every 2-3 weeks to show how the garden progresses.
The main garden has half of our strawberry plants, tomatoes, peas and corn planted in it.
Strawberry Plants
We have two, long rows of tomato plants planted next to the strawberries.
The tomato plants about a month after we planted them
We need some rain on the garden. We've been watering everything while we wait on a good rain.
Our vines are full of green tomatoes. Is it wrong to enjoy a fried green tomato before eating a ripe, sliced one? Hmmmmmmmmm
We have been enjoying the tomatoes for several weeks, now. I've canned quite a few of them, as well. They are still loaded
with green tomatoes and we pick them every few days.
Four, short rows of green beans are planted here.
The green beans have grown, quickly, these last few weeks after planting.
We got a couple of very good rains toward the end of June. It really made the beans jump, as well as the grass! We've
got to get on that.
They are small and hard to see, but, in this row, we have a variety of green, jalapenos, and banana peppers.
Our pepper plants are getting big.
We've already been enjoying some peppers from these plants.
In these few rows, we have squash and cucumber plants. We, also, planted cucumber seeds in the empty row.
The squash and cucumbers are growing, but, everything needs a good rain on it.
Here's an overall view of what we call our lower garden.
We have three, long rows of corn planted. A lot of the corn is laid over in the picture. We just had a strong wind to
blow through right before the picture was taken.
The corn is getting taller.
The corn, at the end of June, after a couple of, much needed, rains!
We have already enjoyed some of the corn this month (July). We should be picking it all and putting it up in a week or
so.
There are two, long rows of peas planted between the corn and the tomatoes. They are growing, but, need a good rain like
everything else.
A few weeks of growing and some much needed rain sure made a difference with the peas.
By the middle of July, we had picked 7-8 five gallon buckets of peas off of these plants. If we can get some more rain,
they will keep producing.
By the end of the summer and fall, we had canned peas, tomatoes, tomato juice, corn, pickles and green beans. We
were, also, able to purchase some fresh peaches, blackberries, grapes and apples and made peach preserves, blackberry
jam, grape jelly and apple jelly. Someone was kind enough to offer us all the pears we wanted off of their pear
tree and we used them to make pear preserves. We hope to have our own fruit off of our trees/bushes within the next few years. After
we plowed the garden up in the early fall, we sowed mustard seed and and enjoyed fresh mustard greens and froze some to enjoy,
later. Summer and fall is always a busy time for us, but, we enjoy the work and truly enjoy the harvest from all the work!
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