Spring/Summer Garden Review

I've been wanting to do a review of our spring/summer garden, to keep a record, and also to note what has worked well in our garden beds and what hasn't worked so well.

We're still figuring out our light patterns and temperatures, not to mention the weather has been pretty cold this spring/summer (and real hot lately!).

These are some of our first true attempts at gardening in the beds we built last year.

Here are my grades for our gardens.

Lettuce and swiss chard: A, possibly A+

We got tons of different lettuce, growing throughout the spring and providing us with many salads. Our lettuce has bolted by now, and we're just saving some for the seed. The chard grew just as well, and is still going for us.

Basil: D

I've been unhappy with our basil plants! Small leaves, straight to flower. No good.

Kale: A+

Tons of hearty kale. What do you do with so

much kale? Make kale chips, put in green smoothies, make some of those gross

sounding kale cookie recipes? [gag]. I've been

thinking about

harvesting most of it, pureeing it, and freezing it in ice trays so you

can easily put them in green smoothies (which are pretty good, despite what my husband says.)

Squash: A

We got a great summer squash: the patty pan squash. That fruited early and gave us tasty little squash. A volunteer sprouted up in one of our unplanted bed, and we're still not sure what it is. And another volunteer heirloom pumpkin set up shop near our compost bins and is going strong. We'll be set come halloween.

Corn: D

Our corn has sucked this year. The stalks didn't grow very well. Something(s) ate some of our ears. We need a better spot for them.

Tomatoes: B

We're growing four kinds of tomatoes (maybe more?). Emerald evergreen, violet jasper (fav name), brandywines, speckled romans, and your typical red cherries.

We're just getting ripe tomatoes... yay! I was unsure if our tomatoes were going to turn out this season...

but we fertilized them and they're plumping up.

We're also growing peppers, cucumbers, strawberries, and more.

Here's some pics of our harvest so far...