I planted lettuce, spinach, kale, carrots, onions and snow peas in the spring. The snow peas against the fence wanted to grow towards the sun and fought my chicken wire against the fence. We had tons of rain which washed away a bunch of my lettuce and spinach seeds so I didn't get as much as I'd have liked. But my kale, oh my, my kale is incredible ... it is October 18th and it is still green and beautiful! The yellow onions were fantastic and I should have plenty until maybe January. The red onions hardly grew and the squirrels liked them too! The carrots did wonderfully as well although I didn't thin them enough and they couldn't get big. The girls would pick them, wash them in the hose and eat them in the yard. Yum!
I planted tomatoes, cucumber, pumpkins, zucchini, yellow squash and bell peppers. The yellow squash died. The pumpkins did beautifully but got a fungus so died early. I was still able to get 6 beautiful pumpkins from the vines though. My tomatoes were amazing. Some days we'd get 30 a day. One of my cucumber plants took off and managed to avoid the fungus BUT the other cucumber plant got the fungus and died early. The zucchini managed to fight off the fungus as well with frequent applications of oil. I planted a variety of peppers but only got one orange pepper the rest I had to pick green as they got too big and weighed down their plants.
Next year I'd like to:
*Move beans/peas so they can grow towards the south naturally.
*Thin carrots early.
*Plant twice as many onions and try red onions again.
*Plant more cucumbers and bell peppers.
*Plant dill.
*Plant jalapenos.
*Plant garlic.
*Plant green beans.
*Plant different types of squash for fall ... acorn and spaghetti squash.
*Plant cantaloupe.
*Plant potatoes.
*Plant eggplant.
*Plant tomatoes in straight rows in the rectangle section.
*Make a trellis to grow beans or grapes!
We had some miracle produce this year. Cantaloupe grew from composted seeds and potatoes grew from potato peels! We got some tiny potatoes to eat but the cantaloupes were too little and the vines died when it froze in October. I was hoping to get just one big cantaloupe but it was not to be. The mini-cantaloupes made for a great backyard food fight. They smashed beautifully!
The kids removing rocks from the back of the garden. To the left are my tomatoes. To the right in the back is my giant zucchini plant with the over-powering kale in front. The onions were along the front by the pink petunias.
Tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and cucumbers!
Picking the end of the tomatoes and pulling up the plants to compost.
Hard working kids ... Jacob, Rachel, Anna and Timothy.
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