Garden update

I figure I may as well share garden updates!  Even if no one else reads this, it's fun for me to go back and look at the progress!
Lots of growing going on this week.  I swear come fall, the patio will be nothing but a big, huge pumpkin plant!  I pulled the peas out this past weekend.  They were pretty well done, as the plants had started to wither.  That, and there was some sort of bug infestation on them and I didn't want it spreading to the rest of the garden!

I have another round of strawberries growing again!  I think I counted about a dozen the other day, and there's more flowers on the plants today!

The flowers that the boy wanted to plant are finally starting to flower!  I wish I could remember for the life of me what they are though!

I have 2 cucumbers, and I think this one is just about ready to harvest.

When I pulled the peas out, I moved the watermelon vines to where they were growing.  I have no idea how big the watermelons are going to get, but it's sure fun to watch them grow!

In addition to the garden, we also have a ton of blackberry bushes growing on the other side of the fence in the back yard.  I hate the yearly battle with them to keep them from taking over, but I sure do love the berries!  I've already made a cobbler out of the harvest, and it turned out pretty good!  I love browsing allrecipes.com for recipe inspiration!  Well, that and pinterest!

Not only do we have a ton of blackberry bushes, but we also have an apple tree in our backyard.  I think it's a braeburn apple tree, but I don't know for sure.  All I know is that it is completely LOADED with apples this year!  One of these days I'm going to have to figure out how to prune the thing.  Looks like I'll be running the dehydrator for a few days making apple chips here in another couple months.

That's it for my garden update this week!  Stay tuned for another update (hopefully) next week!

My backyard garden

Without looking like I'm jumping on the gardening bandwagon, I'm jumping on the gardening bandwagon!  I've done some container gardening for the last couple of years in our back yard, and it's been enjoyable.  There's just something about being able to eat something that you've grown yourself!  It tastes so much better!  This year, we made the jump into making a raised bed, and ohmygoodness, has my garden taken off!  4 years ago, it all started with a couple of potatoes that had sprouted some eyes, and I decided to throw them in some dirt and see what would happen.  I haven't turned back after that and end up finding something new to plant every year!
2 years ago, this is what my garden looked like...

Nothing unmanageable...potatoes, radishes, carrots and beans.  Nevermind the propane tank sitting next to the containers...my garden is on our patio!  Got to have some place to bbq too!

This year, we decided to up the game a bit.  Hubby decided it was time to contain my containers so they didn't completely take over the patio!  A quick trip to Home Depot, a couple 2x12's, some garden cloth, and a few bags of dirt later, this is what I got this year!

I had already started everything in the containers, and I didn't want to risk killing everything by transplanting, so the containers just went into the box!  In addition, I picked up a strawberry plant, and by this time, it was time to plant the pumpkins and watermelons.  The watermelons are the row in the middle, and the pumpkins are to the right.  This was in early June this year.  Starting from the back left, I have 2 containers of carrots, followed by 2 containers of beans.  Next row is 2 containers of radishes, a container of potatoes, and a container of sunflowers.  In front of that is some onions, cucumbers, and 2 containers of snap peas.  The other small containers are some sort of flower (I can't remember what exactly it was that my son picked out!), peppers, and broccoli.

Fast foward a few weeks, and the garden liked where it was growing!

The pumpkins took off, and the peas got so tall that they fell over and I had to come up with a way to give them more support!  I think something ate the sunflower seeds, as they never sprouted!  I've never had any luck with broccoli or peppers, so there's nothing growing in those containers.  Oh well...there's always next year to try again!  I also didn't get to the radishes in time, and they've gone to seed, but I really don't know what to do with them, so I'm just leaving them alone and seeing what happens!

A few days later, the pumpkins escaped from the garden box!

The watermelon plants took off too, and I've got so many runners for the strawberries that I'm trying to pawn them off on my family and friends to keep them from taking over too!

We've had a little friend living in the garden for the last couple of weeks too!

He's decided to take up residence in the gone-to-seed radish containers and I often find him in the carrots too.  I'm pretty sure he's not hurting anything, so I'm just letting him be.  My son thinks it's fun to look for our little froggy friend when we go to water everything too!

It's fun to go out and look every day and see how much the pumpkin plants have taken over!  This is what I walked out to yesterday...

My pumpkins and watermelon have several flowers on them!  There's a couple of cucumbers growing as well (finally!).  I've harvested enough beans to use for a meal, and they were delicious!  I am the only one in the family that likes peas, and I've been picking at least half a dozen of those a day for the last couple of weeks!  I have to fight the dog for the peas though, as she loves them as well.  I think she may have been the one that got into the garden last week because I happened to look one morning and discovered the pea plants were knocked over into the pumpkins!  There were only a couple casualties to the pumpkin plants, and I think the peas didn't suffer too much harm.  I have no clue how long I'll keep getting peas, but they sure make for a tasty snack in the evenings when I get home from work and before I decide to work on dinner!

Next year, I'll have to do some more research and plan things out a bit better so I don't have plants taking over and choking each other out!  Can't wait to harvest the rest of what we're growing throughout the rest of the summer and into the fall!

Stay tuned for more garden updates!  Hopefully I'll actually devote some more time to blogging here again!  Until next time...