The Garden

I realized that I write often about our garden, but I hadn't posted any full pictures. So here they are! We dug up the sod along the fence line this year to add to our quarter-cicle garden in the far corner, which came unsodded with the house. This gave us ample space for lots of things to plant, and next year, after seeing what worked well this year (i.e. what we have too much of!), we'll plant more diverse things.

Here's a shot of most of the backyard and garden.

Some flowers that get beautiful right behind the house

More colorful flowers behind the house

Jalapeno peppers! Last year we had two small potted plants we bought as starters, and this year, we planted one starter and the rest from seed and they are doing great! I've already eaten one that was way ahead of the pack, but there are dozens growing now, and the plants from seed are just as big (or even bigger) than the starter plant.

So I planted a lot of leeks and green onions. I find leeks to be expensive at the store, so apparently I planted a lot of them, just in case. They aren't huge, but they are larger than full size green onions at this point, and even though they are still immature, they taste great chopped up.

Here's a pic of the back corner, which was our entire gardening space last year. You will see the following:

-massive chive and flat leaf parsley in the front

-blank rows that used to be home to a lot of spinach. it was delicious, but sadly died out about a month ago, and we don't know why (maybe when you start picking it, the plant doesn't like it?)

-rows of swiss chard, so good (and also way cheaper to grow than buy in the store)

-a lettuce mix (mesclun I believe) that has some green leaf, red leaf, arugula, bitter frondy things, some mini-romaine type leaves, and some curly greens

-misc. green onion and leeks around the edges

-mint that I almost forgot about from last year that popped up along the edge

-garlic in the back

-yellow tomatoes in the back corner. we gres these last year and one plant yielded more than 50 tomatoes. this year we are harvesting less, but we're just happy to have any. many of our friends haven't had luck with tomatoes this year, since it wasn't hot enough (or dry enough?) and many others have had tomatoes that stay green and don't change color

Here are our yellow and misc. bell pepper plants. we heard they didn't do well from seed around here, and the tall one we bought as a little starter. he's doing great and has a few peppers already getting a nice size. the ones from seed are still pretty small, but we'll see!

More swiss chard along the north fence line! It takes a lot of this when you wilt it down (with some olive oil and onions, yum!) so you need to grow a lot if you want to eat it often (which I do).

More lettuce! It actually grew far better along the fenceline than in the corner, so I'll probably plant it here again next year, but definitely won't plant as much of this variety. I'll likely do some specific kinds, like a batch of romaine, because I love a good Caesar salad.

Anyone need any basil, thai basil, or sage? We have a ton, and we already made a boatload of pesto. We also have dill and cilantro growing.

Okra up close! So good in so many ways! these were from seed and are doing great.

Here are some shots of the okra plants, definitely a few feet tall now.

That's it! You can see I'm already planning for next year. Also, not pictured is the raspberry bush that almost died, I had to move, and now is doing OK and should produce fruit next year. The blackberry starter sticks failed miserably, so next year I will have to get some starter bushes. Cucumbers and radishes for sure (even though Lynne doesn't like the latter), but I'll take suggestions on things you've had success with, so let me know!