Spring

Spring has been good to me this year. Even though we have had many days of rain which have contributed to the phenomenal growth of weeds I am keeping up better this year. My plan is to grow most of the produce we eat this season. I know that eating fresh fruits and vegetables are good for you. Except when I buy them in the store I get sick from them. It isn't the actual fruit of vegetable it is the chemical residue left on. I do wash them really well but that wasn't working either. I finally broke down and bought that vegetable wash which helps but not all the way. So I have decided to start planting. It has been so cold and wet that not much has been planted. I also need to work on successive planting so I have a longer harvest time.

Hope to post pictures.

My flower garden has done the best. Shelly my sister-in-law has taken pictures of those this year. She makes everything look real good.

My Garden

I am so excited for this years garden. I haven't ever gotten out and prepared my beds for planting this early. I have never been good at fall clean up and the weeds tend to get out of control early and stay that way. I did get all that weeding done last year and were I planted they aren't growing weeds as much but there are a few places that I just let go late in the season and they have weeds galore. I am hoping if I get them taken care of in early spring that I won't have as many problems with them this year. I will write about whether it works or not. It seems like most my flowerbeds in the front are easy to take care of except for one that I always forget about up next to the house where some bushes are planted. I never have done much weeding there. Also once my strawberries are done producing I seem to forget to keep weeding them so they get over run in August or so. Then I have a lot of weeds in the spring to take care of there. Right now the weeds are nothing like last year so far.

I also have plans to increase my garden space and plant more of what we eat. I have already planted peas twice and beets along with some Kohlrabi. I usually only get peas in this early. I also got seedlings started in the house and will start hardening them off in a week or two. I have got some sweet potato slips growing in the house as well. My mom saved some sweet potatoes from her garden last year. They have really done well. They like the place were I have put them next to my window in the kitchen. I put them out of the direct sunlight. They will be big enough to root in about two to three weeks as well.

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.

Strawberries

I have two types of strawberries growing. I have one that produces in May or June and then nothing for the rest of the season. Then I have wild strawberries. They tend to be not as big but full of flavor. They do not have runners which I like as well. The one on the top are June bearing strawberries. One on bottom are wild strawberries. I covered my June bearing berries and discovered that I had some bugs in them that ate some of the berries right off the plant then left the bottom halve for me to find later. The birds and bugs don't bother the wild berries as much.

Harvest

I just wanted to write an update on what I have picked so far. This monday I picked 5 ounces of strawberries. I have had at least two similar harvests prior to monday. Then I picked about 1/2 ounce of lettuce. So I have had about 1 pound mostly of fruit and a little vegetables so far. My garden space is very limited compared to most but I think I will exceed the 10 pounds I committed to do. If all goes well, it won't be from lack of trying.

Weeding again

It seems like so much of gardening always involves weeding. I have found that if you neglect parts of your garden and get a good amount of weeds growing that it is quickly cleaned up if you start in the spring when they start growing fast again. I cleaned out all my flowerbeds and my garden patches in the back. I still have to finish in front of the raspberries. It also seems that the last little bit takes twice as long as the huge amount you do at first. I have maintained what I previously weeded with great success this year. Now the weeds are beginning to slow down there growth and there are not as many of them to worry about. I hear if you keep them weeded diligently after that you don't have many weed problems. I am looking forward to a more maintained look with less time taken up by weeding. I have already seen a decrees in how much time I spend weeding.

The front has had the most improvement since I don't have as much space taken up with flowerbeds as I do in the back. I also like the front to look as good as I can get it since a lot of people pass by and notice our lawn.