One of my goals this year is to be a bit more self sustaining. I love the concept of it, but somehow the reality of it isn’t syncing up with my dream of “Little House on the Prairie” living.
For instance, my garden is looking pathetic, unlovely and neglected. My zucchini, squash and cucumbers are all DEAD! Dead, I tell you, and I can’t begin to tell you how sad I am over the loss of all those veggie stir fries, zucchini bread and fresh garden cukes with seasoning. Diagnosing the problem has been tricky, but I am fairly certain it was some nasty bug that delighted and mocked my organic attempts from afar.
So instead, I will let you feast on my sister- in-love’s garden, that knows no bounds. Her love of gardening shows through, because everything she touches, flourishes, but wow, it’s a lot of hard work.
The only thing I have on her….my tomatoes. That is my only crop doing well, and that is purely a matter of opinion.
(And she even looks cute doing it.)
So how is your garden growing?
Are you enjoying food from your own labors or maybe the farmer’s market down the street? What is your favorite garden fruit or veggie to grow?
Simple Rules for Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods – If you’re joining in with a recipe link, two simple requests. As always, Please link directly to your recipe post and not your blog URL, so that everyone can find the recipe months from now.
Also, link back here so that everyone can join in the fun. MANY OF YOU ARE NOT linking back, and it’s just common courtesy of blog carnivals.
Don’t forget to support your fellow bloggers by checking out some of their amazing recipes…be inspired by others.
Wow Jen-
Your garden is huge! I had no idea you had such a big garden. Erin’s zucchini aren’t doing well either- maybe it is a bad year for them?
Toni
@The Happy Housewife, I don’t…I wish I did.lol. My garden is stinking it up this year. That is my sis’s….;)
My garden is doing pretty well. I have learned a couple of lessons that will serve me well for next year. One, you really have to keep on top of watering herbs in pots. I will be planting them in the yard next year LOL. Two, tomato plants take over the world. Or at least the garden. I think my peppers may suffer as the tomatoes are blocking all the sun. Next year I’ll be planting them in their own special area.
Thanks for hosting! By the way, I think you should just delete people who don’t link back. How rude!
The bunnies enjoyed my garden this year. My tomatoes are doing amazing. I planted them in a safer place. It has been hot, hot, hot–and dry. As long as my tomatoes have enough water–they are so happy.
~Vonda
Our hot peppers, tomatoes and cukes have been thriving. My squash and zucchini got infested with some sort of bug too. Sadness. But I have been canning trying to make the most of what I did have!
Your s-i-l’s garden looks magnificent! Most of my recent recipes revolve around what is going on in the garden. This week is salad week as we try to eat up all of the lettuce before it goes to seed.
My garden is doing okay. Right now I am just waiting for things to ripen. But my zuke plant is HUGE and has a lot of flowers, but no zukes yet. Hopefully I’ll be feeding the neighborhood soon w/ lots of them.
Thanks for the carnival.
My organic garden isn’t doing great either. I couldn’t see what was eating my lettuce leaves until I soaked my lettuce in water and EWWWW there was a green caterpillar in there. After the second soaking and the second caterpillar, I think I’ve found the culprit!
My tomatoes aren’t doing great, but at least they aren’t getting eaten alive. I understand now a little bit better why organic food costs a lot more money (besides the costs of the organic claim).
I don’t have a garden this year. I had neither time nor energy to plant my usual square foot gardens. I’m missing the fresh produce, which I now have to buy, but I know this was the right decision for this season.
Your sil’s garden looks wonderful!
I’m right there with you! My lettuce started going to seed before I even realized I should be picking it! LOL!
@Felicia, LOL, me too!! I planted two rows of spinach and it all started flowering before I got to pick it! 🙂
we went out of town and came back to a JUNGLE! the tomatoes are still alive, but can’t even find the green beans – might have one of my boys try to weedeat them towards the sunlight today!! *Blessings*
I love the feeling of havesting something from my garden and bringing it into the kitchen to bake with. I also enjoy canning and freezing items from our garden as well so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor all winter. Right now we have lots of zucchini so I linked up with a recipe for a chocolate chip zucchini cake. Tomorrow I plan on blogging about freezing shredded zucchini so I can continue to make this and other recipes later. Thanks for hosting!!!
Thanks for the reminder on linking back! I had left off my normal tag line with my link party list!
I had a big garden last year but this year I’m just doing a couple of gardens in pots. One is herbs and the other has tomatoes and jalapenos for a little salsa! Other than that it is the grocery store and the farmer’s market for us.
Christi @ A Southern Life
Sounds like what happened to our garden last year. Everything was growing so beautifully and then all of sudden just started dying. We had great lettuce and beans though. We tried growing pumpkins and had some beautiful ones growing and then they just up and decided to stop growing and died.
Your sister’s garden is GREAT!
Enjoy your tomatoes.
We have a deer problem and I hope I have solved it by buying a Scarecrow to keep him away. I am having some problems with the extra heat on the east coast. I don’t want to over water and have our well run dry. Some of my plants that should be the easy ones are not doing great and I am thinking it must be the water.
So sad for your garden! It’s been so wet here that everything is drowning. Makes you appreciate the farmers more!
I planted a very tiny garden this year… and a tiny pepper garden for my husband. When I was sick at the beginning of the summer I paid a gentleman $35 to help with yard work. He weed-eated my tiny pepper-garden. 🙁 Then I planted 4 tomato plants, 6 pepper plants, squash, zucchini, carrots and cucumbers. They all died. Every single one of them is dead for various reasons. There were pest issues, over-watering from a spring storm. I think next year I am going to save my time and energy and focus on buying low cost and canning…. This is my 3rd year and 3rd failed attempt. 🙁
My garden is growing very sslloowwllyy!!!! The weeds are doing very well, however! LOL! I am finally seeing some good results though. We ate ONE green pepper on Sunday! Yay!!!! 🙂
This has been the worst year in my garden. My squash is putting on flowers but no veggies, tomatoes are ok but not very abundant Peppers are minimal and the weeds are over abundant My herbs are for the most part doing well except for cilantro
I have powdery mildew that is killing my zucchini and affecting my cucumbers some. I’ve not given a whole hearted effort to fighting it because of the heat. I’ve gotten a lot of produce from them already, but I was hoping to have zucchini into the fall.
I’d love my garden to look like this. Beautiful pictures, thanks for hosting this carnival—love your blog!
Those are beautiful garden photos!
Welllll …..
We took the County Extension Master Gardener’s Class this year, and, armed with newfound knowledge, I decided to plant a few things:
Everything I tried to start from seed died off. Perhaps that’s because we had new windows put in last year, and, while energy-efficient, the windows don’t let in the light rays that seedlings need.
So, I reined in my enthusiasm, and bought seedlings:
Basil, Bell peppers, Buttercrunch letturce, Swiss chard, and Tomatoes.
Each one has a story.
Basil — we had a few leaves, but then we went on vacation. When we came home, the basil had bolted. (I wonder if it’s still edible.)
Bell peppers — Our dog went frolicking through the garden. Crunch. Lost about half of the pepper plants. However, I have a bunch of 3-inch peppers on the plants that lived. I picked one for a salad, and it had a very thin walls.
Buttercrunch — was bitter! It bolted too.
Swiss chard — This is supposed to grow well for us, but it never had a chance — the rabbits ate it ALL.
Tomatoes — flourishing. I set them in walls-o-water, and they’re taking over. Lots of green tomatoes, but haven’t had a red one yet.
My garden is not doing so great. We had to replant 2 or 3 times early in the season because things kept dying. Now some tomato and corn plants are growing. All the beans have died, and I have a few cantalope plants hanging on. Our well water kills the young plants, so we have switched to soaker hoses. Now the deer are back and I’m about to say forget it for this year:) Sad thing is some years we have amazing gardens and others nothing at all!
Your sis’ garden puts mine to shame. It’s my 1st year and it’s been fun nonetheless! Doesn’t fresh taste so much better?
With all the Oregon rain this Spring, I never got around to prepping the yard for the garden. Bummer! I will have one next summer, though…rain or shine!
My garden is doing okay for just being “thrown” in. This summer is very busy and I debated even doing a garden, so I don’t have too many expectations. I need to get out and weed it terribly. A few things aren’t doing too well, but I’m really not going to worry about it this year. Just no time!!
My squash just started falling over, too. And they had been doing so well. Sadly, I think I may have just picked my last yellow squash. Your SIL’s garden makes me SO jealous! It looks wonderful!
My garden is nuthin’ but a pile o weeds right now. 🙁 Can’t make my preggo self get on out there and tend to it in this heat! Pitiful. We did dig up some potatoes the other day. Should still have tomatoes and a few zucchini. I never find the cucumbers until they’re overgrown and orange. Whoops!
I loved this post! Our garden has been a challenge this year, too. First… no bees to pollinate the plants and then the heat kills what is pollenated. We are watering from our rain barrels like crazy, but our plants seem to know it is not really rain. Squash and zucchini died immediately but we replanted with seeds and those plants are growning quickly. Our tomatoes and peppers are small but growning and we have three watermelons!!
I planted cucumbers, green peppers, zucchini, spaghetti squash and summer squash. The cucumbers are THRIVING. I saw a few tiny peppers sprouting. My zucchini and squash are practically dead. Most everything I read said that zucchini was easy to grow. Not for me, apparently. I’m sad too because zucchini is my FAVE! I’m sorry your garden isn’t doing so well either.
Good garden this year.. We’ve had good weather for it.
My garden is slow growing! Tried a few new things and not really sure when they are ripe for the picking. I also under-planted. Next year I am going to need to find a bigger spot to plant in, or perhaps do more container gardening.
Well, since you asked, I’ll link my garden post to today’s Tasty Tuesday.
I never had successful gardens. But this year I have been watering faithfully, weeding often, and used some started plants. My garden is doing fabulous!! I have tons of things growing… and tons of weeds. I pretty much decided that mine won’t look like the gardening magazines. Despite all my weeding efforts, they come up much faster than I can pull them. But I don’t really care about some weeds if the plants can keep bringing in veggies!!
I’m sorry about your garden. I haven’t had much of a problem with bugs, but watering constantly seems to do wonders for my garden. And your sister’s garden is amazing!! Can she do a guest post about how she does it??? I’d love to hear!! I work my tail off just trying to keep the weeds from surrounding all my plants… and then they all come back! If your sister wants to share, I’d love to hear!
My cherry tomatoes are doing great! Not ripening all at once but every day there are 2-3 that are ripe. I planted just two from seedlings and the plants are huge. My green peppers are doing okay. Not great but slowly growing. I did add some Epsom salt in beginning but it didn’t seem to help much. That’s all I really planted. One of my boys planted some watermelon seeds and they just finally sprouted.
My Dad’s garden is out of control- zukes and cukes out your ears. Luckily, my Dad shares his wealth. Hoping his tomatoes will be ready soon for homemade salsa.
We are having an awesome summer here in CNY as far as growing. Makes up for our rainy summer last year when a lot of summer crops failed.
Some of you mentioned that your lettuces and other greens aren’t doing well. Those are actually cool weather plants that do better in early fall/early spring. That don’t tolerate heat very well.
Sorry to hear about your zucchini! I too have a love of zucchini bread & stir fry and alas did NOT get the green thumb like my sister, Ann Marie (household6diva.com.) She makes container gardening from an apartment look easy!
What are you going to do with your tomatoes? Some salsa… or maybe tomato sandwiches!! (bread + mayo + tomatoes & salt… and some bacon if you’re feeling adventurous! = HEAVEN!)
I do a weekly post on Mondays about our vegetable garden and fruiting plants – http://mydailyround.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-does-your-garden-grow-july-19-2010.html.
Every year is a little different. My lettuce and spinach have not done well at all. However, we’re getting lots of plum, cherry, and grape tomatoes, zucchini, corn, and broccoli. The beans were so so, but only because I forgot to keep planting them every few weeks. Now they’re catching up. The snap peas were great in the spring, too.
I just picked a five gallon bucket of peaches from one peach tree and put four gallon bags of peaches in the freezer. The black raspberries are okay, but providing us with some raspberries, though I think we’ll have a good grape crop. Nothing from the apple trees. Oh, well.
Hi Jen!
Our garden is the best it has ever been. I just posted a picture of my husband on my facebook page amongst the tomato cages, titled, “A farmer is born!” My Friend replied, “Green Acres is the place to be, farm livin’ is the life for me!”
I feel your pain. We are trying our hand at our first garden this summer as well. My tomatoes bloom like crazy but have not produced much fruit as of yet. My beautiful squash was attacked by the squash vine borer last week and we are fighting to keep them out of the cucumers and cantaloupes. But, the good news is that it looks like we will be enjoying fresh peas by the end of the week. Congratulations on the tomatoes!
My garden has failed 🙁 It was our very first one this year – and I just blogged about it today before reading your post. It makes me feel a little better to know I’m not alone and a few of yours have struggled too – although I am so sorry to hear it 🙁 I do want us to succeed!
Here’s my link:
http://womenlivingwell-courtney.blogspot.com/2010/07/failure.html
Much Love,
Courtney
My garden is actually starting to decline because of the weather. It is totally messed up. The grass around my garden is getting dry and my crops are slowly shedding leaves. Even my skin gets dried up. LOL. Good for you, your garden is doing fine. Thanks for sharing these photos.