Well it is the first week of October so the vegetable garden is just about done. I still have a few things growing outside, but not much. This first photo was taken in July, the garden was so overgrown it was ridiculous, and yes, I did allow the appropriate spacing between plants. There is a three foot wide brick path to walk between gardens, and the potatoes grew on top of the path so I could barely walk through. Beans and broccoli are on the far right and tomatoes are growing up the fence on the left.
Now the garden looks like this. I have a few beets from a second seeding I did, lots of parsley and basil, and I did a second crop of spinach. We have since dug up the potatoes and pulled the bean plants.
The basil did super well once I finally eliminated the slugs. They really got attacked by slugs early in the season due to all the rain we got. I have dried more than enough basil I need for the year, so I just left this in the ground in case I need fresh basil for a meal; which I did last night! I made eggplant lasagna! Yum! It was so good!
Here is my second planting of spinach. Spinach is about the only vegetable that I can ever get a second crop from. I've tried radishes and beets, but they end up just forming a root and not a ball. I've already picked from this spinach and enjoyed some for dinner. The slugs started to eat this spinach, so I put down some slug bait. The tarp was put down at the end of July to suppress weeds. Once I pulled the broccoli plants, I didn't want to leave bare soil exposed.
In addition to bush beans, I had some climbing beans that reseeded from last year. They grew over nine feet tall. I'm still picking beans from this vine.
In my other vegetable garden all I have left is Eggplant and Peppers. My eggplant was amazing this year; probably from all the heat.
We've enjoyed so many delicious eggplant dishes but I also had to freeze a lot as the plants were producing more eggplant than we could consume. I STILL have eggplants growing on the plants, and it's OCTOBER; It's just been so unseasonably here in Wisconsin this fall.
My peppers grew into amazing tall luscious plants but surprisingly didn't produce a lot of peppers. Part of it could have been all the wind storms which constantly broke off branches of small developing peppers even though the plants are staked. Another reason could have been lack of sun. I think this area got more shade this year due to growing trees than it has in past years. I also had problems with the peppers not turning colors. I've got a lot of large green peppers, but no matter how long I left on the plant, they would turn yellow, orange, or red, even though that was the type of pepper plant I purchased.
My jalapeños peppers however were another story. Oh my goodness, did these plants produce. I think I have enough jalapeños in my freezer now to last for three years.
Sorry for the scary photo...me without makeup 😆, but I had to show you how tall these jalapeños peppers got and I needed me as a reference: I'm 5'7 and they are almost as tall as me! BTY this is my usual daily attire if I'm working in the garden. I always wear a head scarf for sun protection and keeping bugs and debris out of my hair. I've tried hats, but they tend to be obtrusive in the garden.
I grew kale as always, and harvested some to use in soups and smoothies through the winter. Kale loves cooler weather, so I will probably have this plant at least another month or so.
My lemon balm went insane this year! I can't believe how big it got. And no, I didn't harvest any yet. I probably should do that next week.
And here are some photos of the veggies I've brought in to process. I still have carrots left over from last year, so I only planted one row this year.
If there was an over-abundance of anything this year it was cucumbers. Oh my gosh, I was picking about a dozen a day; I've never had such a good cucumber harvest before. But everyone I spoke to had the same experience; there was something about the weather this year that the cucumbers loved.
The look in Milo's eyes says it all: "Really, more cucumbers?" 😆
I didn't know what to do with all these cucumbers. You can't freeze cucumbers and I already had enough pickles, so I dehydrated most of them. Dehydrated cucumbers taste delicious when they are fresh out of the dehydrator but once you vacuum seal them to preserve them they are no longer crunchy. So I probably have about fifty bags of spongy cucumbers. I have heard they can be rehydrated so I will try that. I followed this recipe to make my dehydrated cucumbers.
Another winner this years was peas. Wow! I have so many peas in my freezer now I don't think I'll even need to plant any next year. I moved my peas to a new location and they seemed to really like it and did very well.
We did go blueberry picking this year. We tried a new-to-us place and it was a little cheaper. We picked so many berries I don't know if we will even need to go again next year.
I made one batch of blueberry scones right away because they taste best with fresh blueberries, then I put the rest of the blueberries in the freezer for smoothies and other recipes.
And now for our LANDSCAPING PROJECT update. My regular readers will know that my wood retaining walls and steps were in bad shape and needed to be replaced, so hubby began a renovation project last year. He only gets to work on it a few hours on weekends, and obviously he's not even home every weekend, so it has been a slow process.
So far he has finished the first retaining wall and filled it with soil. We were able to plant in it this spring, which was great as we needed the space. Then he made the next retaining wall platform. This one will consist of three bins (which haven't been built yet but you can see the holes). On all four sides of each bin is a wooden walking path to I can easily access each bin without bending over.
He made the steps leading down to the garden shed out of stone so they will last longer than the old wooden ones.
Unfortunately the weeds keep growing in the unfinished portion of the retaining wall as we work on the project. Oh, FYI this is the back of the house, for those that might find the deer fencing unsightly.
This is the only completely finished portion of the landscaping project. This is the first set of stairs, leading to the back screen porch. The steps end on a wooden deck where I placed some pots. Then the steeper, longer staircase begins about four feet later. My husband built four beds out of brick which I filled with marigolds this year. These photos were taken in spring, by summer the marigolds were hanging over the edge. Next year I think I might try more variety in the beds, like petunias on the inner edge, then marigolds, and tall red salvias on the outer edge.
Here is a midsummer photo of the gardens. These marigolds got so much bigger than this later in the summer!
And that concludes my last vegetable garden post of the year. Hopefully next year my husband will complete this landscaping project. When you don't hire people and you do all the work yourself, things just take time.
Have A Great Day! Amy
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