Our first summer of vegetable gardening has been a rewarding experience for Chuck and me. It’s sort of like being first time parents…you start out reading every book you can get your hands on…you’re a little tense and nervous about doing the wrong thing…and then finally you put up the books and follow your instincts and enjoy the wonder of it all!
We wanted our garden be beautiful and have an intimate, cozy feeling… not just utilitarian rows of dirt and plants. Our 4 raised beds have been more successful than we thought they would be when we first started.
Our Romas are hanging in weighty clusters from the vegetable netting on our raised beds. The netting hung between two metal fence posts has been a very effective trellis. The secret is to keep weaving the stems in and out…they grow faster than you can imagine! A few wayward stalks have gotten away from us and lean into our paths!
We like the tomatoes planted in the ground along the fence best. They are healthy and just keep on producing.
The brandywines are all huge and a deep pinky red color. We eat tomato sandwiches almost every day for lunch…it’s the taste of summer and we’ll miss it when it’s gone!
The purple trionfo violetto beans from Park Seeds have been our favorite. Harvest them when they are small and they are melt in your mouth tender…steamed or sauted in minutes.
The potatoes are in bloom now…pretty enough for the flower garden. We have russets, caribes and cranberry reds and are using straw as a mulch instead of using dirt to cover them as they grow. I hope this method proves to be a good one.
I sure hope this sugar baby watermelon dangling from the fence gets ripe before we run out of summer. We picked one last week that wasn’t ripe. It’s hard for us inexperienced veggie gardeners to always know when it’s time to pick…but we’re learning.
Our main nemesis in the garden this year has been the squash bug…in all of its stages. We’ve lost squash and zucchini and they are now working on the cucumbers and cantaloupes. We resorted to using sevin dust on our last squash plant but it did no good. Right now we are trying to take the high road and just hope to get a few more veggies before the bugs do. Next year we need to be ready with more effective organic solutions than we were this year.
I think one of the most important things our garden has produced is joy! It’s been fun to watch it grow and change in character and size. It gives us new things to discover together every day…like the giant tomato produced when 3 brandywines fused together between 2 stalks!
We’re not close to eating totally out of our garden yet, but we’ve taken the first step and know someday we’ll come very close to it. Till then have fun in the garden and… stay simple.
Straw? Not pine straw I hope. Pine trees, and their straw are incredibly acidic. They will burn up stuff if left around it too long.
No, we’re using wheat straw. Not much pine straw around here, but as trees are cut they are replaced with pines. So in a few years we’ll have more pine straw. Now it’s just plain ole straw!
That’s good. I’m conditioned by where I live that when I hear straw I immediately assume pine straw. Don’t let pine trees into your yard, they have a wicked power to prevent anything else from growing or thriving.
You guys are living my Thoreau fantasy!
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Gordon
beautiful tomatoes! It is so awesome to see sustainable fresh vegetables.
Did you can any of the roma tomatoes?
We canned a few, but I’m new to canning and found that coring them and freezing them in ziploc bags was a lot quicker and easier. I’ve used them in soups and sauces all winter and they’ve done great! Thanks for your interest, Farmer John.