Our Vegetable Garden

One of our shared interests as a family is our vegetable garden. Some of us love the planning,planting,tending and harvesting. Others enjoy the eating! We've had a fairly good season this year, had a bit of blight on the tomatoes that we seemed to have conquered, and are currently planning and planting our fall garden. Here is a bit of what has been happening in our yard this season.
    A few years ago, my husband and son Timmy built a new raised bed for all of our vegetables. This year we added some pea gravel in the walkway. Next year, I'd like to add a beautiful fence, gate and lighting, but for now, it's chicken wire that keeps out the unwanted guests. My son started most of our plants from seed early in the year. By late March, we were ready to direct sow any vegetables that we hadn't yet started inside. This included peas, beans, arugula,kale and a bunch of other lettuces. Thanks to the cool weather, our greens took off and were beautiful and ready to eat in no time at all.
   

We also harvested some beautiful peas and multi colored beans.
 

Our chives grow back each year and show off their colorful blossoms in the spring.
 

Once again, I tried broccoli and cauliflower. We did okay, but not the amount that I'd hoped for.
  

We planted both Red Russian and Lacinto kale.

Once the warmer weather arrived, we transplanted all of our tomato plants outside. By early summer,our garden was looking lush and gorgeous.
   

Then tomato blight hit.I was worried we would lose all of our tomatoes, but since learned that a combination of  1 gallon of water, 1 Tbsp of vegetable oil, a few drops of Dawn dish soap and 2-3 Tbsp of baking soda can help fight and prevent the disease. We bought a sprayer from Amazon and went to work. I sprayed every few days for about two weeks, then went to spraying once every 2-3 weeks. It worked very well! I will use it as a preventive measure in the future. Works on squash and cucumber plants as well.
   Once we took care of our blight situation, we began to see our gorgeous tomatoes bursting with color! Here are some of our plants and our picks.

Aren't the colors beautiful? They were sweet and delicious as well.
   Rather than the usual purple globe eggplant that we usually plant, we opted for a smaller,thinner white Japanese variety.
  

  Zucchini,cucumbers, melons,carrots and potatoes rounded out our lineup this season. The squash is slowly emerging, no sign of melons yet, so that's disappointing, and we did harvest a few carrots,which were delicious!
  

Every year, we love to try something new. Purple brussel sprouts were the latest addition to the garden. They are growing nicely, and the plants themselves are really stunning. Cannot wait to try them!

We've also had a few fails this season. Peaches were non existent, the nectarine tree died, and I believe my Gala apple tree needs another season before I will see any fruit. We did manage to grow some blueberries,blackberries and we have a few lemons that will hopefully make it to harvest.
   

That's what is happening around the garden this summer. If I am successful with the squash, melon and potatoes, I will be sure to share. We are now hoping that the pumpkins we planted will be a success, as well as the beautiful victorian pigeon ornamental kale..if they grow, I will have a gorgeous display for the front yard this fall!
   Check in tomorrow and I will share a recipe for all of the beautiful tomatoes that are currently available.
Have a great day!