Yes, we knew we were having a baby in early June way before we made our garden plans for the season. No, we didn’t listen to people who told us we were crazy. Yes, we are crazy. No, not everything worked out.
Here’s the rundown of our growing season:
We had a bumper crop of strawberries! They are planted right in the front of the house so it was easy enough to pop out there where Lilia was asleep and pick (and eat!). Also, because they are so easy to freeze, that is where most of them are. We ended up with four gallons of frozen strawberries, not to mention all of the berries I ate :).
We had a few raspberries from the plants we planted last year, and the ones we got were delicious. Here they are pictured with some of the wild blackberries we have by the stream. None of these made it to the freezer.
For some reason, after the berries were done for the season, the rest became much more difficult to manage. It could have been the combination of wretched hot weather followed by torrential rains, life with newborn, earthquake, hurricane and flood. We had a great crop of onions, garlic and potatoes, some nice shell peas and the first harvest of green beans was great! I made some pickles early on, although not nearly as many as last summer. The tomatoes were pretty much a total loss and that was the most heartbreaking thing of all.
This picture was taken after one of my more recent trips to the garden to cull what was left. The pumpkins, although not prolific, gave us a good number for what we can currently manage. I hunted butternut squash through tall grass and weeds and came up with about 10 of them! Soon to be made into baby food :). We have a couple of green cabbage, plenty of carrots (still in the ground), a couple of leftover cukes and green peppers that FINALLY started to produce. Somehow we ended up with tomatillos that have been fun to play around with. In addition, we got about 10 pounds of peaches from a co-worker of mine that I was able to preserve…half in jars and half in the freezer. Wow, how much would I love a peach tree?
In other news, the hens have decided not to lay eggs. We aren’t quite sure what is going on with them except maybe performance anxiety? I had all these people lined up to buy our eggs and now I have to tell them all “sorry”! What the heck, birds??
Anyhoo, despite some of the veggies not growing, our little Lilia Bean continues to thrive!
Here’s yet another picture of her sleeping…just over 4 months old already! Just one look at her and the failed tomato crop just doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
<3