Garden Wrapup

I'm probably not the best one to do this blog since I feel disconnected from our garden this year due to being pregnant. Eric did a great job as always and I believe we had a good harvest.

Here is Eric in April planting a new almond tree because the first died. We added several things to the garden this year including extensive herb/flower beds, got our blueberries planted; and tried corn, watermelon, cantaloupe, and potatoes. The corn didn't turn out to well and the watermelon never never got super sweet. We had some trouble figuring out when some things were ripe for picking, sometimes waiting too long and not being very good (which was the main issue for the corn).

We were thrilled to get peaches and bumper crops of raspberries and blackberries for the first year of producing fruit (blackberries were particularly hard to tell if ripe- any tips?). We were especially excited to have some great grapes. I loved seeing the blossoms and leaves change through the seasons. There was something fulfilling seeing our whole yard green up this spring.

Here is Eric putting down the black plastic for the tomatoes and peppers in May. Another addition this year is Eric designed a drip system for the garden. We had a few problems that made us wonder if we were watering enough, boy is it getting more complicated getting everything watered and picked in good time. I decided the kids would be in charge of picking berries and maybe we could keep up. Eric also got top notch super big sturdy tomato cages which worked great so we didn't have to wade through a sea of vines.

The two cantaloupe plants sent out bumper crops; we had cantaloupe (Aaron holding a specimen) nearly everyday and the chickens got plenty of over-ripe ones also. Miriam is holding the best cucumber we got- they grew, but not many and not well.

The kids did enjoy helping pick things. Here they are Oct 6 digging up all the potatoes. You can also see the tomato cages. We got 3 nice size pretty good pumpkins also that can see on the left. We thought we were doing red potatoes, but the interior of the potatoes seems white, despite the red skins.  We also got quite a few volunteer tomatoes.

We also got a baby, momma, and papa watermelon. Here are the kids on Oct 6 with the papa watermelon. It weighed in around 45 lbs!

 Rachel upper left after eating all the strawberries on September 8. We have been surprised how long the berries have kept producing. I feel bad I didn't get more/better pictures of the garden and the new flower/herb beds. The purple flowers are larkspur which I really like how they turned out. The orange ones are gladiolas, also a pleasant surprise (Eric picked most varieties). We are not real sure on the rest of the specimens, if you know what they are let us know. In the white flowers you can see some chamomile flowers. Some things didn't come up at all, and we didn't do a very good job harvesting so the experiment goes on into next year. Maybe soon with seeing we will remember the difference between perennial and annuals!