It's Summer And Things Are Growing

I love my gardens. My flowers and my veggies and my planters. They aren't large by any means. In fact, my backyard vegetable garden is barely as large as my bathroom. If we had room, I would have acres of garden. Mounds of flowers. Huge plots of corn and beans and squash. I could subsist on home-grown food. I'm already longing for the days soon to come when I can walk out back and pick tomatoes or peas right off the vine and just start munching.

This year I tried a few new things. My tomatoes always do extremely well. In fact, I bought one new tomato plant this year to grow some regular sized-tomatoes. And in my garden right now there are at least 15 cherry tomato plants. I have already given some away. And I have more to transplant into pots. It just breaks my little green heart to rip them out and throw them away!

Oh yes, the new things. Well, I suppose I'll finish the "usual" things first. Tomatoes, squash, beans, peas, peppers & broccoli. They all seem to be doing just fine. As usual.

This year I put in asparagus and rhubarb roots. The package said not to harvest until next year. So far they are just growing right up to the sky. I have been told that the more feathery they are this year, the more stalks they will produce next year. Which is very exciting as I love asparagus. And did you know that Michigan is the third-largest asparagus producing state in the US? It's true. Granted, with the size of my garden, I will only be contributing about one meal's worth of asparagus, but that will be a great meal indeed. And the rhubarb already looks great. Much self-control is needed to no pick those bright pink stalks. I love perennial vegetables.





And onions. I have planted them before, but they always kind of just wilt out for some reason. So far I have nice, healthy rows. Basically, I have an excellent salsa garden. Many tomatoes, onions, peppers and herbs. I have sage and oregano, chamomile and mint for tea, rosemary and chives for cooking and lavender for...whatever you use lavender for.




I also planted spinach and carrots this year. Spinach is easy. I've done lettuce before. And I might this year, but haven't gotten it in yet, so maybe not. But carrots I have tried to grow in the past and haven't had much luck. This year they seem to be doing really well. (they are at the back of the picture. Behind where Darrell is guarding) I'm pretty excited about it. I am going to re-seed a little bit of my patch as I am learning that part of it doesn't get as much rain as the rest due to the trees that need to be cut down above them. But in order to cut down the tree, we need to replace our fence. And we need to build our garden shed before we replace our fence as the shed will be right next to the fence and they will be supporting each other. Whew. What a summer of projects we have!!

And then there are my beautiful flowers. In another month the morning glories will cover the whole front of my house and I love it! Plus I was really excited to see a poppy! I planted a bunch of random seeds into a hanging basket and I didn't know what they all were. I have wanted to grow poppies forever. They are such a cheerful flower. So, I'm going to be transplanting this out of the basket into my garden to keep growing every year!

As soon as the salsa is ready, I'll invite you all over. I'm thinking about trying to make enough to can it this year so I have it for months. And freezing the squash for many months of zucchini bread. Most everything else is a one or two-meal situation. Just wait, the call will come in soon for the dinner party!