I haven't done a gardening post in a long time because, honestly, I am getting a little tired of gardening. The thrill that was there in the spring and early summer of watching our plants grow is gone, and I am left with the only the monotony of watering, weeding, and trimming. Its not that I don't still enjoy gardening, because I do. I still get excited going out to harvest big baskets of goodies. Its just that at this time of year, after the 5 months of work, I am tired and the garden doesn't hold quite the spell over me that it once did. It just looks like work! Work that I would rather spend indoors, getting my home ready for winter. I want to paint, redecorate, do cozy things like bake and crochet. Not be outside weeding for hours just to have them all grow back in a matter of weeks!
I am pushing myself to get out there though, because this garden is what feeds my family, and honestly, once I am out there, I enjoy myself. Its a time for quiet contemplation, something I have needed a lot of lately. Yesterday I went out to clean the garden up, and while I didn't get all the weeds pulled, or all the tomatoes picked, I did get some things checked off the list.
Crazy but true, I planted more plants yesterday. I really wanted to try fall gardening, so I put in a bunch of broccoli, some peas and some lettuce. Hopefully we will find a way to continue growing lettuce through the winter. We need to build some sort of cold frame for it. But for now, its still warm enough for it to be in a bed unprotected. I still have some turnips to plant, along with radishes, but those cant wait for a few more days. I have corn that's almost ready to be harvested, and a pear tree dripping with pears. Sometimes the garden can be such a handful! But then I look at something like this, and I remember why its worth it:
That's what I harvested from the garden yesterday, a ton of cherry tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, a yellow pepper, some orange tomatoes, an old German tomato and a few regular red ones. The tomatoes are almost all going into the freezer for now. When we have enough, Matthew and I will be making a batch or two of salsa, and maybe canning some diced tomatoes, and tomato sauces. The tomatoes have about another month before the first frost that will kill them, and there are quite a few left on the plants to ripen:
I have trimmed almost all leaves off the plants to shock them into putting all their energies into tomato ripening. With this wacky weather we have been having, I don't really know what more to expect from these.
The cherry tomatoes are huge and out of control:
Sadly, the recent rains were too much for a bunch of them and I found close to 50 split on the vines. Luckily, there were a bunch more to replace them! We get 50-75 tomatoes every few days from these 3 plants.
All that's left of the cucumber row is two lemon cucumber plants. I pulled the pickling cucumbers out because they had powdery mildew on them, and now the lemon cucumbers have it too. I got some organic spray to use to kill it, but these are so close to the end of their life that I don't know if its worth the bother.
The new plantings; organic Sugar Ann peas and organic Marathon broccoli. We haven't grown either of these before so I am excited to see if we like them or not!
After the tomatoes, cucumber, corn, peppers, carrots and watermelon plants are pulled out we will be planting Crimson Clover over all of the garden to restore the nitrogen to the soil and hopefully smother out some of the weeds. I am already thinking of next years garden because even though its hard work, and am I tired of it right now, I really do love gardening. I love seeing seeds grow into safe, organically grown food for my family to eat. I really enjoy seeing the happiness that the kids get out of the garden, and the pride they feel when they show it to family and friends. Now if only I could get them to weed with me!!
I am pushing myself to get out there though, because this garden is what feeds my family, and honestly, once I am out there, I enjoy myself. Its a time for quiet contemplation, something I have needed a lot of lately. Yesterday I went out to clean the garden up, and while I didn't get all the weeds pulled, or all the tomatoes picked, I did get some things checked off the list.
Crazy but true, I planted more plants yesterday. I really wanted to try fall gardening, so I put in a bunch of broccoli, some peas and some lettuce. Hopefully we will find a way to continue growing lettuce through the winter. We need to build some sort of cold frame for it. But for now, its still warm enough for it to be in a bed unprotected. I still have some turnips to plant, along with radishes, but those cant wait for a few more days. I have corn that's almost ready to be harvested, and a pear tree dripping with pears. Sometimes the garden can be such a handful! But then I look at something like this, and I remember why its worth it:
That's what I harvested from the garden yesterday, a ton of cherry tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, a yellow pepper, some orange tomatoes, an old German tomato and a few regular red ones. The tomatoes are almost all going into the freezer for now. When we have enough, Matthew and I will be making a batch or two of salsa, and maybe canning some diced tomatoes, and tomato sauces. The tomatoes have about another month before the first frost that will kill them, and there are quite a few left on the plants to ripen:
I have trimmed almost all leaves off the plants to shock them into putting all their energies into tomato ripening. With this wacky weather we have been having, I don't really know what more to expect from these.
The cherry tomatoes are huge and out of control:
Sadly, the recent rains were too much for a bunch of them and I found close to 50 split on the vines. Luckily, there were a bunch more to replace them! We get 50-75 tomatoes every few days from these 3 plants.
All that's left of the cucumber row is two lemon cucumber plants. I pulled the pickling cucumbers out because they had powdery mildew on them, and now the lemon cucumbers have it too. I got some organic spray to use to kill it, but these are so close to the end of their life that I don't know if its worth the bother.
The new plantings; organic Sugar Ann peas and organic Marathon broccoli. We haven't grown either of these before so I am excited to see if we like them or not!
After the tomatoes, cucumber, corn, peppers, carrots and watermelon plants are pulled out we will be planting Crimson Clover over all of the garden to restore the nitrogen to the soil and hopefully smother out some of the weeds. I am already thinking of next years garden because even though its hard work, and am I tired of it right now, I really do love gardening. I love seeing seeds grow into safe, organically grown food for my family to eat. I really enjoy seeing the happiness that the kids get out of the garden, and the pride they feel when they show it to family and friends. Now if only I could get them to weed with me!!