More veggies from our gardens

Still harvesting - of course.

Tomatoes from Emily, Marissa and my boxes.

Rainbow peppers and carrot from Marissa.

Zucchini from Xiomara.

What fun!

Garden Update

I'm pretty sure I posted about our newest gardening idea. Here is an update:

We are harvesting - mostly zucchini from Kemiah and Xiomara.

Kemiah's bed - a little full.

Check out all those banana peppers!

And loads of zucchini.

Marissa's bed - healthy peas all in front.

Xiomara's watermelon plant and zucchini.

Domonique's watermelon and pumpkin.

So cute!

Emily's onions, potatoes and tomatoes!

We will be eating lots of cherry tomatoes!

Harmonie and Camdilyn's strawberry patch.

I wonder if we'll get any berries.

I need to read up on how to care for these to get more berries!

My husbands onions, my tomatoes and potatoes and cucumber.

Ben's potatoes and pumpkins.

He's so excited to see lots of pumpkins!

The great farmer!

The pigs love the water hole Marissa made for them.

They have made it larger and love to sit in it most of the day.

Yuck.

No garden this year

We just didn't keep it cleaned up, the weather stayed cool so long into spring, and we had no desire to till up all the weeds. So, Kevin worked with the kids to get the fence extended so the chickens could forage. Maybe that will help keep the seeds from getting planted so they can't grow so easily next year. It will certainly be strange not having anything to harvest, of course, I wasn't very good at that part anyway. I wonder what we will do with all our "free" time.

Garden is growing again!

I noticed recently that my zucchini plant has green leaves again... AND it is growing more zucchini! The main plant, first plant, is all dean and you can see the brown leaves in the bottom picture. But it has four new growths that are actually producing more veggies. I couldn't believe it! I was really good about harvesting, even if they were too big, because I could feed them to the pigs and chickens if we weren't going to eat them, so I know it's not just from an old zucchini. I am just amazed at this little plant! I'll have to pick the zucchini before it freezes, now that the temps are dropping so low at night.

 

Harvest Time

It's that time of year - harvest time! Our garden grew pretty well, amazing really!

This year, we bought the baby pepper plants, rather than trying to grow them from seeds and it made a huge difference. The peppers actually look like the ones I get at the grocery store!

 

Unfortunately, the zucchinis got a little too big but they sure look nice, work fine for bread, and the pigs like them.

The plant got really big, too. I guess it's actually two but it's huge.

Lots of cucumbers - which the pigs and chickens also enjoy - and so do we. I love going out and picking something for dinner.

The cucumber plant all of a sudden started to turn brown and die. I guess that's the end of that.

We thought the pumpkin plant was only growing one but we actually have four - and this is one that just grew from old seeds in the ground. It is much organer now.

We planted lots of potatoes and some of them have these seed pods or something growing on them. The kids all thought it might be a new breed of plants - a cross between potatoes and tomatoes...

The really fun part is cooking a meal with all homegrown stuff - fajitas with our peppers, onions, and even the chicken is from one of the birds we raised. Awesome!

And of course, with all those peppers, you have to have stuffed peppers. I figured no one would like them but we all liked them. I did need some of the extra filling because there was just a little too much pepper but it tasted rather good!

Monster zucchini from the garden - it weighed in at 7 pounds! The girls had a good time taking lots of pictures. Just had to show you that it's as long as my thigh.

Our tomatoes are finally turning red, all at the same time, of course. This particular night I made stir fry (without tomatoes) but those peppers are really big.

It has been fun but I'm not looking forward to harvesting and storing all the potatoes. I think I'll can a lot of them to use for soups and stuff through the winter. You just gotta love the harvest!

Harvesting Day

I know it is Labor Day, and most people take the day off from working but not our family. Kevin decided this was the day to harvest the rest of the stuff in the garden. He dug up onions and potatoes, while the kids picked all the corn that was left and tossed it to the chickens. It was sort of incredible to see all the food.