Gardener Extraordinaire!

Back in May we ordered a giant bag of black earth and went shopping for plants.  We have lived in our house for 5 years and every year I have planted a veggie garden.  Most years that garden has half succeeded.  This year I was determined that it was going to be awesome.  I did a bit of research but went mostly with the knowledge I have from my grandfather.  He lived three minutes from where we do now and he had the most beautiful gardens imaginable.  Armed with the memories of his gardens I decided what I wanted to plant and off we went.  I think I mentioned in a previous post what we planted but in case you missed it (or I am wrong) we planted: cucumbers, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, broccoli, celery, peppers, swiss chard, snow peas, yellow beans and left from previous years we have raspberry and blackberry bushes.  When we were finished we had teeny tiny little plants in the garden.

Teeny Tiny!

I've spent the last two months checking and watering those plants and tonight I am pleased to say everything has done quite well.  The only problem we have had are pests.  Something has eaten my snow peas to the point that they are not going to produce anything and something stole three out of our four broccoli plants.  Everything else is beautiful.  We will be eating most of our veggies from the garden for the next few weeks.  We had yellow beans yesterday and when I looked tonight there are enough for us to have them again on the weekend.  The broccoli that didn't get stolen is just about ready to pick and I understand we will get a little more from it once it's cut.  The celery is almost ready to start using it and I've had several salads from our lettuce.  Last night I made a swiss chard and quinoa dish to take for lunch today.   I'm looking forward to all the wonderful tomatoes to ripen.  This year I am going to can some and have Adrian make some sauce that we can use all winter long.  Of course several tomatoes will have to be used to make toasted tomato sandwiches!!!!

Here's the broccoli now:)

 I'm very happy with my gardening adventures and have learned a lot for next year.  The broccoli leaves got quite large so I will have to give them a bit more room next year and I planted my tomatoes a little to close together.  I learned that beans do much better at the back of my yard as opposed to the side where I have planted them in the past.  Usually they don't get very big and they get burnt.  This year with more shade they have beautiful green leaves and loads of beans.  The rest I'm growing for the first year and they have grown perfectly.  I often joke that my grandpa lives in my backyard guiding me while I do these things.  I suppose if you think about it most of what I know about gardening comes from spending time with him in the summers so even though he is no longer with us his knowledge lives on:)