DAILY FARM LIFE

how does your garden grow?

surprise

I walked out to our garden last night, hoping to find that my children hadn't plucked every last squash from the vine. It had been a few days since I'd been out there and I was pleased to find that the garden was overflowing with sugar snap peas. I had no idea they were here already.

garden report

After all the rain this spring and early summer, our garden is beginning to look more jungle-like every day. My husband diligently weeds each weekend and here and there during the week nights. It's a never ending job.

This whole gardening experience has been a learning one. Most of our lessons coming in the form of garden layout. It is so important to plan. And we did. It's just that I came home with some plants to fill some holes in the rows, and some of those are beginning to take over. (I wouldn't recommend planting your white pumpkins next to your strawberry plants. Somebody might get a little choked out.)

garden report

I think one of my favorite parts of this whole process is seeing how much pleasure my children get from seeing things grow. It is this miraculous wonder that never ceases to amaze them. Though we've had to regulate some of the harvesting, I love looking out my window to see one of them wandering up and down the rows, bent over plants, watching and waiting for something to be ready. The waiting. The anticipation. The joy in the harvest are such valuable lessons.

this one

And while Dan continues to refer to the garden as his garden, I am
still anticipating the appearance of my colorful row of cutting flowers
and pumpkins. And while he works to weed and maintain, soon all the
responsibility will be mine, as things start piling up in the kitchen,
waiting to be preserved, canned and frozen–just one more thing to learn.

I'd love to hear how your gardening adventures are going this year. What are you growing? harvesting? What worked, what didn't? Dan is already drooling over the new fall catalog that came in yesterday's mail.

surprise

I walked out to our garden last night, hoping to find that my children hadn't plucked every last squash from the vine. It had been a few days since I'd been out there and I was pleased to find that the garden was overflowing with sugar snap peas. I had no idea they were here already.

garden report

After all the rain this spring and early summer, our garden is beginning to look more jungle-like every day. My husband diligently weeds each weekend and here and there during the week nights. It's a never ending job.

This whole gardening experience has been a learning one. Most of our lessons coming in the form of garden layout. It is so important to plan. And we did. It's just that I came home with some plants to fill some holes in the rows, and some of those are beginning to take over. (I wouldn't recommend planting your white pumpkins next to your strawberry plants. Somebody might get a little choked out.)

garden report

I think one of my favorite parts of this whole process is seeing how much pleasure my children get from seeing things grow. It is this miraculous wonder that never ceases to amaze them. Though we've had to regulate some of the harvesting, I love looking out my window to see one of them wandering up and down the rows, bent over plants, watching and waiting for something to be ready. The waiting. The anticipation. The joy in the harvest are such valuable lessons.

this one

And while Dan continues to refer to the garden as his garden, I am
still anticipating the appearance of my colorful row of cutting flowers
and pumpkins. And while he works to weed and maintain, soon all the
responsibility will be mine, as things start piling up in the kitchen,
waiting to be preserved, canned and frozen–just one more thing to learn.

I'd love to hear how your gardening adventures are going this year. What are you growing? harvesting? What worked, what didn't? Dan is already drooling over the new fall catalog that came in yesterday's mail.

42 comments on “how does your garden grow?”

  1. I find myself coming back over and over again to look at that photo of your garden. It is so peaceful and beautiful. A job well done for sure!

    We are trying to grow corn, tomatoes, zucs, beets, bush beans and celery (i found starts and thought I’d try it). Things are hit or miss this year…we have had the weirdest weather and hardly any rain (I’m in seattle) and unfortunately I’m horrible at remembering to water. The beans and beets are our best things so far.

    Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be back again to look at that picture again. It really brings a calm to me for some reason. (AND an inspiration!).

  2. your garden looks beautiful. I would love to have a garden like yours someday. Right now, due to too many tall oaks, mine is in pots on our very sunny deck.

  3. Wow! I’m jealous of the size of your garden! We’ve planted the usual..corn, squash, lettuce. The kids got some seeds from a 320 lb pumpkin at a reading festival, so we planted those too. I’ve never seen such large pumpkin vines! It is great watching the kids help out with the garden. They’re also much more interested in eating what comes from it.

  4. Your garden is gorgeous!!!!! We planted a garden this year for the first time ….. we’ve been planning to do it for years. I kick myself for not doing it sooner. The kids love it and it’s not as hard as I thought to weed and water.We have bush beans, cucumbers, lettuce, radishes (already harvested and consumed!), kohlrabi, bell peppers, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.I think next year we will skip the radishes. We also have a plan to plant some ear corn in the sunny spot behind the garage.

  5. Your garden looks great! Ours didn’t go so well. So far, we’ve harvested: about 10 itty bitty radishes, one salad of spinach, 8 tiny broccoli florets, and a couple small bowls of green beans. The green beans were the biggest success. Oh, and we have lots of basil. Still waiting to see if the tomatoes, zucchini + cucumber will do anything. The cauliflower and green pepper aren’t doing *anything*.

    I’ve learned we need more space and sun. Now what do I do with this little cleared area of mostly shade?

  6. That is a beautiful,lush looking garden. Ours is tiny, but even so, the kids take care and check up on things as if it’s the most important crop in the world. Especially Anna, who will report several times a day on every new leaf and shoot…and comes back smelling suspiciously like basil.

  7. i think the corn is the most anticipated thing in our garden. all my girls are crazy about eating corn off the cob and emma finally has a summer without a gazillion loose teeth, so she can chomp right in.

  8. i love your garden! i don’t know what my garden is…maybe wild. after all this rain there’s a lushness that i can’t get under control. the bees have taken over the roses and cat mint…i can’t get in there to cut any back to even assess what i could plant. and my butterfly bush has become a butterfly tree…i had to move echinacea plants that were dwarfed and shrinking due to lack of sun.

    i do love it all and as every year, had big planting plans that never happened, time has a way of escaping me. (=

  9. i wonder if you can freeze fresh basil? I guess i could put it in pesto and freeze that.

    maybe you could have a patch of hostas in that shady spot??

  10. i definitely need to do more moving around of plants as well. i started a bit this spring and then lost my enthusiasm. but the things I did move look so much healthier. yes, time does slip away…. 🙂

  11. Your garden looks fantastic. I planted garlic, tomatoes, red & hot peppers, basil, onion, cabbage, squash, pupmkins, peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, radish, beets, strawberries, raspberries & some lovely herbs.

  12. Oh, your garden is *perfect*! I’m so impressed, and envious. We have tomatoes, lima beans, regular beans, potatoes, lettuce, spinach, mesclun, arugula, butternut squash, zuchini, 2 kinds of cucumbers, radishes, lots of spicy peppers and tons of herbs. Unfortunately, it has been so miserably wet and cold in New England that not much is going on with the warm weather crops, and my poor nasturtiums and zinnias are very sad. I don’t think there’s going to be any pesto this year…but the lettuce is happy.

  13. dianna: we had a similar experience b/c we planted some cool weather crops a little late, but with the long spring we had, they still managed to do well. it has been such a strange start to summer weather-wise.

  14. Our garden is still in process…green tomatoes on the vine and the squash and zucchini are flowering. Unfortunately, our bell peppers are not doing well. It turns out I probably crowded my garden as well. I should have forgone the peppers and spaced our the squash. I’m looking forward to the harvest!

  15. Believe or not we are just about to plant our garden, small for this year obviously. But what can you do when you first move, better to have a little one rather than none this year. Those peas in the first picture look wonderful.

  16. What a beautiful garden! My poor garden has wilted to nothing since we’ve had over 20 days in a row of temps over 100 🙁 Maybe in the fall…..

  17. My garden is coming along–we grew much from seed and some from transplants; there are peppers and tomatoes growing larger right now, lots of lettuce ready to eat, though the spinach looks sad. I think it keeps bolting because of all the rain. Oh well. I might grab some later to make an omelette tomorrow. Our chard is coming in, carrots are maybe growing, and the zucchini and winter squash are just setting buds now (the seeds were planted a little late and the first round stolen by eager chipmunks). I’m pining for when I have lots to preserve in the kitchen!

    Not so much pining for the endless weeding….

    I put some photos on flickr if you’re curious, Molly–ickr.com/photos/57743657@N00/

  18. Your garden looks great. We have had a garden many years. I still find it fun to watch things grow. We are just about sick of shelling peas now. We have massive amounts of onions, potatoes, and black beans. We have “normal” amounts of other things like lettuce, beets, parsnips, and carrots. Well maybe we have tons of carrots and beets too. We like to grow more of the things that store well.

  19. Reading about your kids waiting for the food to grow made me think of the book Anna’s Garden Songs (which I love).

    We are growing tomatoes, sunflowers, squash, eggplant, lemon cucumbers, lots of herbs, arugula, and some other stuff… Plus we have peaches and apples growing on trees.

  20. your garden is great! we started our first garden this year and are hoping for success:) the kids just love it. i think all children should be able to experience gardening and see how food grows firsthand.

  21. Three feet of rain…need I say more?It is OK, the fence is up, the gates are on and we will have happy goats that will get moved in there~maybe today.We will be ready for fall and we are looking forward to the next time.Always a learning experience and never quitting, isn’t that what’s important after all?

  22. Oh, how I love sugar snap peas! I am already anticipating our garden next summer (we had to put this year’s on hold due to a move), and have started marking pages in seed catalogs. There should be a support group for those of us that squeal when the new catalog arrives!

  23. Your garden is beautiful! So lush and green. I’m wondering how your youngest interacts with it, since mine is only 15 months and doesn’t really engage with anything but the shovel! We live in the Bay Area in CA, so our summers aren’t quite warm enough for the real heat loving plants, but tomatoes and eggplants do okay. I’ve got tomates, peppers, basil, other herbs…

  24. Well I know exactly what you mean about it being ‘his’ garden! The same thing happens in our house! We are growing a real mixed garden. Its winter here in Western Australia but we still have stuff hanging on from summer as well as lots of winter greens and herbs. We’ve just been away travelling for 5 weeks and were relieved to come home and find our garden had looked after itself very well in our absence. We were a little concerned that the kangaroos and rabbits might have moved on in while we were away but they didn’t and all the rain we’ve had has everything looking very lush and green. One thing we didn’t expect was to still have tomatoes at this time of year but we came home to an abundance of beautiful sweet yellow pear tomatoes. You should try grow them, your girls would love them.

  25. What a lovely garden! We live in the city, so are limited to a small plot (10×15), but we’ve got a lot in there: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, carrots, lettuce, bok choy, patty pan, green beans, sweet peas, kohlrabi, red onions, basil, marigolds, zinnias. The best part is the garden is nestled on a corner of our lot and is surrounded by an ever-blooming perennial garden. This was our second year of growing (our first growing all from seed) and it’s already better than the first.

    There’s another spot on our property, next to our young herb garden, that I’m also converting to an ‘urban orchard’ of sorts: tart cherry tree, apple tree, blueberry bushes, pilgrim cranberries, strawberries, rhubarb, and raspberries. Like you, it’s all trial and error (even though I did try to plan a layout), but it is so much fun. There’s no disappointment in having just one blueberry show up this year – the joy is with the experimentation and delight at all that does grow and thrive!

  26. You can freeze it but the book “Stocking Up III” by Carol Hupping recommends blanching it first by swishing it in boiling water for a few seconds, then blotting dry before freezing. The color stays green and it retains it’s flavor better.

  27. We’ve got way to many squash: zucchini, yellow crook-neck, butternut, pumpkins, watermelon, cantaloupe. We harvested our first tomatoes this week from our Silvery Fir Tree heirloom and one volunteer cherry tomato I found in the alley. Peppers are not doing so hot, I bought them from a roadside greenhouse and I wish I would have started them myself. Eggplant is flowering. Blackberries and peas are done and I picked the first batch of beans this morning. Beets are hopefully surviving as the tomatoes are shading them out. A few onions from a friend tucked here and there and some parsnip seeds in the ground but apparently they take a long time to germinate. Nectarines are ready and I made a pie after freezing some for smoothies. The best part is the fig tree. I made a batch of fig jam yesterday and have more recipes for them as long as I can keep ahead of the birds.

  28. Oh, your garden is absolutely beautiful! And I’m suffering from chicken envy right now. Alas, we live in the city and have a small yard neither of which is conducive to chickens or large gardens. I do have a small garden with a variety of tomatoes, peppers, dwarf sugar snap peas(growing up the chainlink fence),cukes and zucchini. Gardening by the foot…squeezed in to a corner of our yard. And yes, even in the city a deer wandered in one night when I left the gate open and ate, yes ATE all of my almost ripe better boys and lemon boys! Grrrr. A problem I am having right now is powdery mildew on my zucchini and cucumber leaves…any suggestions?

  29. This year our brocoli is doing wonderful, which is awesome because our 5 1/2 year old loves it… Our zuchhini is doing great, and our cucumbers are good also. Our strawberries are were good, and went from 4 plants to over 30 this year. I had them every day while they were here. Onions are huge vidalias, peppers are too. Also the tomatoes are going crazy… I just love gardening! Yours looks so beautiful. My boyfriend always tells me when I work out there to put on some gloves. I was raised in the country though and that is the biggest thrill to me, working with my hands and feeling the earth… I just cannot bring myself to put on gloves, even if my fingernails look like a dirt grubber for a couple of days!

  30. Molly, your garden is beautiful, you must spend hours weeding! I posted a garden report last week at edgyjunecleaver.blogspot.com This is my first garden and I’m terribly proud of my tiny plot and babysteps.

  31. I just blogged about my little gardening experience this summer the other day… I only have a tiny bit of space for a container garden, but it is lovely to have even just a little garden. 🙂 Your garden looks lovely!

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