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What can I say?
I am in heaven. For years I have wanted a real garden…a huge…ginormous…garden.
I have been blessed this year with my in-laws sharing a junk of land with me to supplement my sustainable living ways here in our house.
It reminds me of all those years Daryl and I spent sharing a full size bed and the joy of moving into a King size…
It started off looking something like this..
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As with every garden it has been a labor of love, learning and good old fashioned work.
I have loved every minute of it! It now looks something like this….
well actually bigger than this because this photo is about 3 weeks old…
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The joy of having two gardens across town from each other would have to be that if one garden takes a hit the other is doing just fine.
On my side of town we have had little rain…on the big gardens side of town we have had pretty consistent rain.
I have only watered this garden twice in the months I have been working in it. Yet it has done fantastic!
I call that very lucky.
I planted beans…not sure why because I HATE picking beans. It is one of those crops that I plant every year and every year tell myself that next year I will NOT plant it again…lol!
I love these purple beans though…so pretty.
Believe it or not when you cook them and they turn green…no idea why?
I think next year…when I “don’t” plant beans I will probably only use this variety. I love them because they don’t blend in to the plant.
They are easy to spot and pick and taste just the same.
The watermelons and cantaloupes are yummy! Non of that seedless watermelon crap for me.
I prefer good old fashioned heirloom, seeded, variety’s. I hate hybrid anything really. I find them tasteless.
This one…ya Lucas ate this whole thing just about by himself….he reallllllllyyyyyyyy like melons
The tomatoes are out of control. There’s no shortage of big, old, ugly tomatoes.
See if you ever wonder why tomatoes in the store or even roadside stands all taste kindof blah…it is because they are all hybrid’s these days…gone from the grocery store are the ugly tomatoes. It is much easier to grow a hybrid that was created to resist certain diseases.
I get that… but when I am growing a tomato in my own garden it will only be a tasty, full of flavor and very ugly heirloom.
Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Kentucky Beefsteak and Yellow pears are amongst my favorites!
Look how ugly this one is…you know it had to taste delicious!
Squash and Zucchini? Coming out the ears…
My freezer is out of control…
This week I need to get to canning tomatoes, salsa, green beans and peaches….I have been slacking and just freezing.
I have been letting everything “go to seed” this year (at least everything that is an heirloom plant).
I will be posting this week with the “how” and the “why” of seed collecting…but lets just say I love that plants make gardening cheap!
Oh and then there are the garden “pets”…
If you have dill or fennel in Richmond…you probably have these….
I have enough to share with them….
Oh and then there is “Juan” …his mother must have planted him under the Jalapeño plant as his nest.
I have had fun watching him grow…he now is on his own it would appear but I can always catch a glimpse of him every now and then hopping through the veggies. Clearly, Mr. McGregor I am not.
That about sums up the big garden for now…this weekend we are pulling the beans, melon plants, squash, zuchinni a few rows of tomatoes…..and time to start putting in some of the fall plants and second round of plants.
Oh and guess what my Thirty One bags are good for? Veggie picking!
