Looking back on my harvest

I have been thinking about my garden and how successful it has been. I have had some challenges at first and I still need to do more weeding but over all my garden has been a success. I spent every day in July almost picking raspberries. I froze a quart and we ate at least that much or more. My zucchini started off slow and I have had a total of 4 to 6 so far. They were only 12 oz total so far. They got two then stopped until recently. At least they didn't die this year like they usually do. Also I haven't felt like I was over loaded with Zucchini. My yellow squash did the same thing it got a few but now it has been producing like crazy. I made muffins out of some of them it took almost four to get enough for the recipe, so they are small. (It called for 2 pounds.) I have 3 more of them in the fridge right now. And we ate some of them raw just cut up about 1 pound so I think a total of 3 pounds so far.

I have gotten about 6 handfuls of green beans a few ounces at a time. total 1 pound. I lost half of my plants to disease. It looks like I will loose the others soon to. I hope to have some cantalope and watermelon. Oh yeah my peas did very well. I stopped weighing what I picked we would just go out and pick a snack off the vine. The kids did that a few times. They also lasted till this week they were producing from June until the first of this week when I finally pulled them up since most of the vines had died. I got at least 2 pounds or so of course that is just a rough estimate. I might have gotten a little more. I don't think I have reached my goal of 10 pounds yet I need to look back and add up the berries. From just the vegetable listed in this blog it looks like I have picked around 5 pounds plus what I got in berries. Not bad for a small garden. I still have tomatoes growing they aren't ripe yet so I hope to get some of those to count.

I have had the best year ever. I have never done so well with my garden it has been weeded more often and has produced more and done better than all the past years. I also had a goal and that has helped a lot. I also got a few carrots I almost forgot about them. I hope to grow more as well as some turnips before it gets cold we will see how I do. I should also plant my winter lettuce that I have never tried out before. I bought the seeds a few years back and have never planted any of them at all.

Suprises

My garden has offered me a few surprises this year. I got some seeds from my mom. She had them labeled "We be little pumpkins" and I planted them and when they grew they grew yellow squash. The yellow squash was shaped similar to a small spaghetti squash. I did leave them on longer than normal since I thought it was a pumpkin at first. Then I started noticing that it didn't look like a little pumpkins. I was able to pick three and stuff them for lunch with rice and hamburger. They have a very good flavor and I like them. I do have a small squash on the vine now but if I pick them when they are really small they are short about 2 inches and not very big around, so I will wait for it to get bigger.

I didn't kill my zucchini plant yet so that is a good thing. I have actually gotten 4 of them so far. I got two just recently. I did have to pick the first two smaller than I like them since the bugs were eating the zucchini. These last two were the size I like. Not too big not too small.

The other surprise was my peas are still growing. I just got a handful of them this morning. I expected them to die off last month sometime. I have new growth on them as well. They aren't producing much, they did stop growing in the middle of July and didn't produce anything till this week. And we have had a few good size snacks.