eating my garden
People, it's that time of year again. The time of year, when the fruits of all your labor (quite literally, in this case) come about. And you eat them. I struggled a bit with my garden this year, with a few failures. I was pretty upset about that earlier in the summer, and I'm starting to re-think my capacity to start everything (well, almost everything) from seed. I am not a farmer. I have a full-time job and hobbies and responsibilities that have nothing to do with gardening. I love gardening, but at this point I don't really have as much time to dedicate to it as I'm realizing that I need to do things "the right way" (how I came to think that starting everything from seed is "the right way" and that it's cheating to buy plants, I'm not quite sure). So this is something I'm still contemplating for next year's garden...
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We're still at the high point of this year's garden. And the bounty has arrived. While my parents were here, I pulled up the first bunch of carrots. A few of which were not quite ripe yet. But they were delicious.
And then there was the first of my summer squash. I know that in a few weeks I'll be overwhelmed on the squash front, but for now, I'm just enjoying it. This one, by the way, made it into that strata I told you about.
And finally, the tomatoes. I had big plans for my tomatoes this year. I think I have nine or ten tomato plants out there and I was hoping to really have enough to do some canning. Unfortunately, they're all pretty small and I don't know if I'll have enough for much tomato sauce. But I'm adapting. Things don't always turn out the way you'd hoped or planned, I know this solo summer certainly wasn't what I had anticipated, and there's nothing like gardening to teach you that. So I'm here, enjoying what I have. And starting to think about next year.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We're still at the high point of this year's garden. And the bounty has arrived. While my parents were here, I pulled up the first bunch of carrots. A few of which were not quite ripe yet. But they were delicious.
And then there was the first of my summer squash. I know that in a few weeks I'll be overwhelmed on the squash front, but for now, I'm just enjoying it. This one, by the way, made it into that strata I told you about.
And finally, the tomatoes. I had big plans for my tomatoes this year. I think I have nine or ten tomato plants out there and I was hoping to really have enough to do some canning. Unfortunately, they're all pretty small and I don't know if I'll have enough for much tomato sauce. But I'm adapting. Things don't always turn out the way you'd hoped or planned, I know this solo summer certainly wasn't what I had anticipated, and there's nothing like gardening to teach you that. So I'm here, enjoying what I have. And starting to think about next year.
yay julia!
ReplyDeleteoh, i do love this time of year!
we already harvested much of our garden and froze and pickled and ate! now, we're planting another batch that has less than 60 days maturation...
i do love a good harvest!
(at our community garden where our plot is... we seem to be the only folks harvesting food. many of the other plots have bolted lettuce, rotting squashes, gigantic onions popping out, overgrown chard... it's so sad and i just want to take it all and eat it and give it to the local food bank... but, a part of me feels way to guilty even thinking about harvesting someone else's garden... )
happy harvesting julia! i'm so happy your garden is providing you with deliciousness!
hi julia.
ReplyDeletegardening is such a learning experience. we work via trial and error. this year we bought a tomatillo plant that had so many blooms but it won't produce unless there is another plant. by the time we realized it, there were no more tomatillo plants available.
we normally start everything by seed too but this year we bought small tomato and pepper plants. we have a very limited space to garden. in fact, we tucked ours into our flower beds as our landlords didn't want us to dig a garden. still, i'm pleased with the harvest so far.
i think your veggies are beautiful. enjoy them. to me, it is always so amazing to think that i grew my own food! xox
Your veggies look so yummy. I've had some good and bad gardening experiences this year as well. I really enjoyed my lettuce and soon my tomatoes will be ripe. I've had a couple that were red already but then they turned out to be rotten. I'm very jealous of those carrots and that squash-they look so colorful and yummy! Enjoy your yummy garden goods!
ReplyDelete