Garden Update- Harvest

"You dig a little hole, and you put in the seed, and you put on the water, and then a little plant comes."

I was never more happy about gardening, not even when I was eating sun-warm tomatoes with salt and pepper, than when Zeke explained this to an older woman at the store. We were picking out bulbs to plant, as was she, and I have to admit that I swelled with pride.

I decided that if I want flowers next year, bulbs are the best way to go about it. Zeke insisted on crocus'. Truly. When he first pointed to them, I led him away pointing out the big hyacinths and cheerful daffodils and crazy narcissus, and he pointed out 2 other brands that also offered crocus'. So crocus' we shall have. I picked tulips, because they are pretty much guaranteed to thrive (there are a million in our neighborhood) and iris', because they aren't, also because I love them. I love them all, though, and seriously considered turning Zeke's dirt patch into a flower garden. But then I remembered how much he loves his dirt patch.

When I have boys too old to dig in the dirt, I will have a huge flower garden.

The tomatoes are out of control. We're eating spaghetti, and cacciatori, and lasagna, and tomato soup, and tomatoes sliced on every sandwich, and diced on every salad, and thrown into ministroni and onto tacos, and yet there are still 4 or 5 always sitting on the counter.

My tomatoes are usually blemished, sometimes split from over-watering, and anything but uniform in size, but they are the most delicious tomatoes I have ever eaten.

The bell peppers are spicy. Spicier then I am used to bell peppers being. And it seems as if the ones I am allowing to (or forgetting about until they) turn red are spicier then those I pick while green. Which is opposite of what I was always told. My whole family prefers green, which is what we buy in the store but I was always told that red is sweeter?

Our peas are about 4 inches high, and flowering. I'm going to have to find the time to stake them pretty soon or else they will be falling over. If I'm lucky, I can talk my husband into finding the time to build me a little trellis. Staking them this spring didn't work very well.

I'm really hoping we get peas before the frosts come.

The green beans are the plants that just keep giving. I thought, at my last update in August, that they were done. But we ended up getting one more dinner off of them and yesterday I picked what I truly think are the last...a handful fit for a Zeke-lunch.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

I have lots of purple irises if you want some!
Unfortunately, we're so busy you would probably have to come dig them up yourself.

I like the irises better than the tulips we have because they bloom for longer and their foliage stays around after. But, it's definitely nicest to have a whole variety of things that bloom at different times so you always have flowers. If I ever get the time to plan and plant, and the money to buy bulbs, that's what I want to do.

Congrats on a garden well done!

We only had three tomato plants this year, and they weren't planted in the ground until July. The beefsteak plant only has one tomato, and it's still green, lol.
But we have lots of cherry tomatoes. Those are my favorite, you just go out there, pluck a few, and eat them just like candy.