Garden 2012 - August

August was a hot one, but the garden still did well.  The cucumbers and squash patch was taken out and that made room for some other fall vegetables to be put in.

Our sunflowers hung their pretty heads, so we took them down for the birds to enjoy.

Jeren showing how big his pepper plants grew.  They got to be taller than he was. :)

We found this fellow somewhere and brought him home for the garden.  He did a great job of eating the tomato worms - we even watched him win a fight with a bird over a tomato worm. :)

Howdy, Sir!

We planted okra in July and by August is was up and blooming - isn't it gorgeous?

Our first little okra.  We pickled quite a few jars of okra (the kids favorite) and we froze about 20 quart sized bags of sliced okra to use in Succotash. Don't know what that is?  Think: fried potatoes, carrots, sweet potato, corn and okra all in the same pan......Absolute Yumminess!!!  (Silver Dollar City style)

The squash patch got tilled up again and Keith went down to the local little farmer-market-type store and asked what to plant in a fall garden.  Their answer....Green beans, Turnips, Spinach.  So he bought seeds for all three and brought them home.

Squash patch turned Turnip patch!

Fall Green Beans planted.

Garden 2012 - July

We were gone a lot in July, so when we got home the garden looked pretty sad.

 

Our sunflowers were beautiful though!

The very day we got home the kids picked all the tomatoes.

I think our lettuce is past eating, what do you think?

One picking from one day. :)

We got busy and took out the plants that were done producing, to make room for more to be planted as soon as the days got cool enough for a second crop.

We pulled lots of grass.  Since this was our first year of having our garden here, the grass from the yard tried it's best to come back - but we won that war. :)

Look at that sweet, sweaty face.... *smooch*

After a few waterings - it perked up.

We did a LOT of this - this was just from one day. :)

Garden 2012 - June

In June, we really got to enjoy fruits (or vegetables) of our hard work we had put in.

The squash grew great!

The boys checking out the latest creature to visit the garden.

 

Yummy Green Beans!

I forgot to take a full garden picture until dark.

 

Lettuce - yummy salads!

 

We all like peppers! (We planted red, yellow, green and jalepenos)

 

 

This we just the yellow peppers from one picking. :)

 

Zucchini

 

Garden 2012 - May

By May, the garden was really growing. The entire family enjoyed seeing new things come up - you'd think we had never seen anything like it before. :)

Megan had a cucumber patch, Owen had squash, Kristyn had tomatoes and Jeren helped Daddy with the peppers.

We planted peas and they did GREAT!  None of them made it into the house, though. :)  We just ate them in the garden, but that's what we planted them for.

Aren't Pea Blossoms beautiful?

Owen's Romain Lettuce (note to self: Thin them out next time).

Onions!

Our first little tomatoes.

Owen was so excited to see his first squash blossom.

Nobody can have a garden without flowers, can they?

Also, in May, we got lots of rain - remember THIS post?

Garden 2012 - April

April found us busy planting....

Kristyn was proud of her first crop of lettuce from the pot we planted in March..she is our little apron-wearing girl...she loves aprons. :)

Garden 2012 - March

I don't know about you, but this time of year seems to last for-ev-er. :)  I'm not complaining about it, because it forces me to stay inside and get some projects done that have been staring at me for a while and I like that feeling of accomplishment.  BUT if anyone knows me they know I LOVE to be outside!

So I won't bore you with my finished projects - decluttering, organizing, sign painting (I may share those later) room rearranging....the list could go on and on, but you get the idea.

I thought it would be fun to do a post, or two (or ten) and show the progression of our garden last year. :)  We had SO much fun with our garden and are still enjoying the veggies we got from it.

In  early March, a dear man from our church came and plowed up the yard with his tractor.

Then our pastor came and tilled it with a tractor he was using on his garden. 

What a blessing BOTH of these men were - I sure wouldn't have wanted to do that with a shovel.

 

We had planted some lettuce in a large pot and it was sprouting green in no time, making us all super excited for our new garden to be planted.

 

The bed is strawberries.  Our great Aunt had given me four strawberry plants in a pot a couple of summers ago.  I left them in the pot and one died and the other three took off.  By the next summer when we made our strawberry bed, we planted 136 strawberry plants (yes, one hundred thirty-six) - just from those three plants. :)

 

Our finished product (for the month of March) ready to be planted.