Vegetable & Fruit Garden 2015

The gardening season challenged us in many different ways this year. Rain for all of May, June and half of July created ultra soggy soil conditions that didn't allow plants to thrive. A very dry rest of the summer allowed for some things to rebound and rid themselves of diseases brought on by too much rain. Now, we are once again doing a rain dance. Our soil is dry down at least a foot in most locations, hard as a brick and cracked.  Plants are really struggling since their roots are so shallow given their adaptation to the early spring and summer rains. There is some rain falling today and we are hoping it amounts to something. (Dance, dance!)

Here's some pictures from our harvest last night:

Many of the flowers we interplant to attract pollinators are in full bloom now - late in the season due to the early season rain delays, but in some ways that's quite beneficial. Late season nectar is highly sought after and is something we all should think about in our home landscapes. If you do, you will help fuel migrating monarchs, hummingbirds, and critters like warblers, dragonflies and bats that feed on nectar or foliar feeding insects. We will do a full blog post on this very soon....it's a very exciting topic!

The marigolds are in their shining moment right now.

These little red ones from Baker's Creek are one of my favorites.

Bees of all sorts are loving the blooming basil, which must be quite an abundanct source of nectar given the high levels of activity.

We are picking lots of raspberries, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, yellow zucchini, red peppers, and jalapenos. We only harvested a few winter squash due to the rains and since it is such an important part of our diet, we went to the Owl Creek Produce Auction and bought 64 small butternut at $0.50 each - what a deal! If you live anywhere near a produce auction, we highly recommend going as long as you pay attention so you buy what you think you are buying at the right price. We got it right this time. We store those butternut in our basement root cellar and they last us well into winter.

Any of our tomatoes that are rotten are shared with our thankful chickens. They are great recyclers!

Steve thinned out our chard and kale bed and we plan to sow one more patch of spinach and kale for winter. We are a couple weeks later than we prefer to allow for adequate plant growth before frost and low light levels slows down production, but we are going to give it a go anyways.

Our new onion method is a total winner. Look at these beauties!

We hope you all are harvesting some good food too...there is just something so extremely satisfying with growing and eating pure, chemical-free, delicious food.