Mid-Summer Garden Update

Im sorry to everyone that has me on any sort of reader and is getting notification after notification that I've updated my blog. I am going back and labeling all my posts since mid 2009 when I stopped labeling posts so that I will be able to organize them by means other than time. Downside? Some readers see that as writing new posts. Upside? Soon I will have an easy way to look at backposts for myself, since this is kind of replacing any sort of scrapbook of our life until a time when I have the time to actually scrapbook (heh).

Anways, your regularly scheduled post.

Our Spring harvest is pretty much over, I've picked the last of the spinach, ALMOST the last of the lettuce, and our peas and strawberries are definitely dwindling down. I couldn't be happier with how it went, though. The spinach and the lettuce did way better than I had imagined they would. We only planted 1 row (we have 6 foot rows) of each since I wasn't sure about their success and that fed us for a good 2 months, maybe more, I can't remember when I started harvesting it. It was so nice to be able to go out and just pick a salad.

Our peas did pretty well too, a few died but most of them survived. We planted 2 rows and Josh and I have decided that next year we should up it to 6 or even 8.
We all really like the peas and we did so much snacking off of them that we were never able to have them for dinner. I'm finding we could easily keep up with 3x as many peas as we had this year. I think next year we should built a better trellis as well. I put stakes down for them to climb up but only about 1/4 of them really figured it out. I did a lot of tying and a lot of picking up a pea plant in order to find the peas.

The strawberries didn't fruit as much as I could have wished, but they were just planted last summer and I know it can take a while for strawberries to really settle in.
And I might have had a lot more then I knew about. I have a strawberry fiend in my midst, after all. Zeke got a good handful every morning and sometimes Josh and I even got one or two well-hidden berries.
I think next year will be a big year for strawberries, year 3 is supposed to be full maturity. I also think that there will never be enough, however.

Coming up soon? The tomatoes are up to my waist...they are HUGE. And I've found a few little green fruits starting. The peppers have a few flowers. The plants look small though. I've never grown peppers, so maybe they are supposed to be? I apparently gave them way too much room if this is full size.
(tomatoes in back, peppers up front. the seedlings were all evenly spaced, lol)

(a pepper close up)

The green beans looked like they were being eaten up when we left for our vacation, and I had given up on them. They look better now, though also small.
I imagined they would be more...bushlike, lol. We will see what happens. Our squash were murdered by a two year old. I was pretty disappointed because I love squash but, oh well. It will be something to enjoy next year :)

I think I will really expand next year. We didnt nearly use up all the room we could have. Everything is really spread out, with a good 7 feet plain left over.

I want to retry squash. And do 1 or 2 zucchinis, some potatoes, maybe watermellon or onion or garlic... I'm glad we started small because I know if I got overwhelmed the whole project would just be over but now I'm looking longingly at what friends are doing...Im talking about you, Ivory.