our overflowing garden

One of our very first projects when we moved into this house in May was to tear up one quarter of our grass and plant a garden.  Our first big garden: about 250 square feet.  I am so thankful we took the time to get our garden in.  We have been enjoying the fruits of our labours for a couple months already, with plenty more to come.

right at the beginning

Although it seemed way too spread out initially, we realize now that our garden is actually way too dense.  And there are several plants we should be pruning back, and we haven't (yet).

just starting off

This year we "cheated" in that we bought many of our plants as 1"-4" babies at the garden store.  It seemed less risky for our first try at a big garden.  We planted our carrots, spinach, onions, and green onions from seed.  The rest was from seedlings (is that the right term?): pumpkin, tomatoes, kale, leeks, acorn squash, butternut squash, green beans, zucchini, and cucumbers.

We are definitely still learning, but have had great success this year, due mostly to the large amount of mushroom manure we used?!  Either way, we're so enjoying eating our own garden-fresh produce this summer.  I've also enjoyed learning how to preserve our harvest for the winter.  So far I have made 4 jars of pickles (many, many more to come as they keep producing) and frozen 5 bags of blanched leeks.  I'm hoping to make one big batch of salsa once our tomatoes are ripe.

one of four butternut squash so far

our big pumpkin and the crazy mess that is our largely un-pruned tomatoes

Stewart and I have really enjoyed spending our evenings working in the garden together, and Micah loves to help us weed on the weekends.  (It helps that our weeds are huge and plentiful!)

I called this our 'overflowing garden', and it's so true.  Not only have we had an abundant harvest, but our pumpkin plant has very much overflowed onto our grass.  By several feet.  Now we know not to plant it in the middle of the garden!