I have peppers!

Remember my big plans to plant a garden this summer?  And then about half way through the summer my pepper plants and basil had grown, but the peppers still didn't have any fruit.  My cherry tomatoes did well, but my squash and zucchini had failed miserably, remember?

Well come the beginning of August the pepper plants were huge!  But still no fruit.

Pepper plants & Basil end of June

Pepper Plants and Basil now

I must admit I was a bit down-trodden towards the end of the summer as well.  It did not flourish as I would have liked.  I've never really had a green thumb, BUT I had high hopes.

Well towards the end of August I noticed that I had 2 peppers on one of my pepper plants!  Needless to say I was ecstatic!  If nothing else, I had succeeded at growing SOMETHING.   And then as the month of September came and went, the peppers multiplied!  And a couple even turned red!  I love red peppers!

Also in early to mid-September Chris pointed out that I had a cantaloupe growing!!  How sweet is that?!?

The super sad thing is that I went out a couple days ago to again admire the one piece of fruit my plant had yielded- AND IT WAS GONE!  Something ate it!  Talk about disappointed.  I have no idea what happened, but the whole thing is gone!  No evidence of anything.  I'm guessing a deer?  Gardeners always seem to blame things on deer and bunnies, but this job seems to big for a bunny.

And then my sweet potatoes are underground, but at least the leaves on top look pretty good.  I'll dig them up in a couple more weeks.

So I had had big plans for the Fall.  I was going to continue with a Fall garden of lettuce and broccoli.  (I don't really like collards and some of the other greens, so no point in trying to grow them.)  I had actually started some lettuce and broccoli inside in our sun room, but guess what?  Yep, they died; they sprouted and were looking good for a couple weeks before I managed to kill them.

And then the more I thought about it the more I realized I really don't want to be hauling the hose out the back of the garage and around the corner to where the plants are all fall.  Its a huge pain and since it will be getting dark earlier it will be more challenging for me to go out and water after I put Phoebe to bed.  I'm going to take a break this Fall.

But next Spring and Summer I have big plans.  You see Chris is going to help me build 2 square raised beds that we will put in the small grassy area directly behind the garage.  This way I won't have to haul the hose out quite as far AND there will be plenty of sun.  (Some of my original planting areas this past summer did not end up getting enough sun.)  And I'm starting a compost pile.  I keep reading and hearing that good soil and good compost are the keys to a successful garden.  We try to do most things green around here (recycle, cloth diapers, cloth napkins, and I try to be mindful of packaging and what types of cleaning products I use) so why not compost as well?!?  I will tell you more about our attempts at composting later on.

But now that you've seen my mere little garden let me show you my inspiration!  This is what some good compost can do for you :)

Well good compost, some land and a little red barn.  Every garden is going to look better with a little red barn.


This is the garden of a lady at church.  She is an avid gardener and LOVES teaching and educating school children and just about anyone about organic gardening.  She has been a great resource and her garden really is an inspiration.  Phoebe and I have taken several field trips over to her garden and she has even allowed us to come over and pick fresh produce when she is out of town.

Check out these trellises they have made for peas, and beans, and anything else that you can grow UP!

I just LOVE sunflowers.  How amazing would that be to have a row in your garden?

She's got a few more sweet potatoes than I do.  Yeah, that's a lot of sweet potatoes.

And how cute are these peppers?!?  I think they are called Christmas Bell Peppers, or something like that because they are in the shape of a Christmas bell.

And if the vegetables weren't enough they even have bee hives to make their own honey!

I will keep dreaming (and practicing)...

The best gardening advice I've ever gotten: There's always next year!!

The Garden

Back in the spring, I decided I want to try to plant a garden this summer and got real excited about it.  I blogged about it here.

Ok, the garden really has not turned out as well as I would have hoped.  I started out planting a couple tomato plants, some squash, zucchini, peppers, basil, and green beans.  I has also planted some broccoli, lettuce, and peas earlier in the spring, but none of those really grew or produced anything.

At the beginning of April there was some questions as to whether we would be living in the townhouse again for another year so I got a little bit of a late start planting.  I didn't plant my summer vegetables until the end of April.  (And it is typically in the evening when I go out and water the plants, so sorry that the picture are a little on the dark side)

My cherry tomato plant is doing great!  It has lots of green tomatoes on it right now.  My heirloom tomatoes, however, look horrible.  I'm pretty sure it is dying.  They are right next to each other, so its not like one has gotten more water than the other.  I keep hoping it will turn the corner and come back to life, but I'm running out of hope now.

The plant on the right looks pretty dead, doesn't it?

My pepper plants look good.  Well, minus the fact that there are some bugs eating some of the leaves.  The organic garden spray I bought to keep the bugs off has done absolutely nothing.  The plants themselves have grown a lot, but there is still no sign of any peppers.

My basil looks great though and we have enjoyed having fresh basil.

Everyone talks about how easy squash and zucchini are to grow.  My plants came out and grew well, but have yet to produce any veggies!  The squash plants have flowered several times, but no squash to be seen.  My neighbor's plants have had several squash and zucchini to pick, so again I don't have much hope for mine.  Pretty sure I haven't done anything different...

Only one green bean plant grew and it has produced a total of 2 green beans.  I am proud of those two green beans though...

At the beginning of June I found some cucumber seeds that someone must have given me, so I went ahead and planted those then and they are starting to come up.  Just a couple weeks ago I went ahead and planted some cantaloupe too, so we'll see how that goes.

My elderly neighbor (who often forgets who I am even though we have lived next door for three years) nplanted one tomato plant- and nothing else.  I'm pretty sure she never waters it (but thanks to the rest of us it does get some water) and it is over-flowing with tomatoes.  She didn't do anything but dig a single hole.  She really does have a green thumb, or at least knows how to pick a good plant from the store...  Her one plant will provide all of us with plenty of tomatoes this summer.

Kathleen's tomato plant.  You can't tell, but it is HUGE

Its been fun so far, but it has been a lot of work as well.  We are in the middle unit on a row of townhouses, so our spout for a hose in in the front of the garage.  We had to get a 100ft hose to reach all the way through the garage out to the plants.  It is a big pain to uncoil and coil up each evening.  Next summer I am going to have Chris build me some above ground beds that we can keep closer to the house.  This will also help control the weeds a little bit better too.  I want to use this square foot gardening technique next year.

My Garden Project

I always liked the idea of having a garden and planned to plant one whenever we bought a house and had a yard.  I had always planned on having some flower beds too- (in our yard at our house).  Currently we don't really have much of a yard so neither a garden nor flower bed seemed like a good possibility.  (We do have a little area in the front where I could have a flower bed but I have never wanted to invest the time or money in it since we were only going to be here for a year...and then one more year...and then just one more year...)

Behind our row of townhouses there is a pretty big drop off into a large ditch with some trees that separate us from the backs of other townhouses. We've been here three years (or at least Chris has) and it is somewhat embarrassing to admit that I never really looked back there.  I had seen lawn men throw their grass clippings back there; Chris has thrown away dead house plants back there, and one of the neighbors always warned her daughter not to go back there because there were snakes.  So really I thought it was basically a wasteland and never bothered to walk around or pay much attention to it.

Well because we've been out back quite a bit throwing the ball with Knox (and he will venture back into the wasteland) I actually went back there and walked around, and guess what I found?  There are some beautifully terraced garden areas.  Turns out one of my neighbors and her late husband built them years ago and had a pretty nice garden.  The area hasn't been used in several years; its a shame for it to sit there unused- hence my garden project.

Look at this- it is just calling my name asking to have vegetables planted in the dirt. (sorry the light isn't great in the picture)

So when my parents were here last weekend my Dad and I ripped up all the old rotting ground cover, and he helped me rent a rototiller to till up the soil to get it ready for planting.  Thanks Dad!  I couldn't have done it without you!

We even tilled one strip of land in what probably used to be a flower bed, but hasn't been cared for in awhile.

The neighbors are very excited and this will definitely turn out to be a community garden.  Its quite a bit of space so I'm hoping not to get myself into a project that I can't keep up with.

One of my neighbors helping already...

It wasn't cold enough for snow this winter, so she decided
to make dirt angels instead...

We tilled up a golf ball that is now Knox's favorite.
The trouble is going to be keep him out of the garden

Look at how good this soil looks now.

OK so maybe its a little hard to tell, but it looks good and I'm pretty proud of it so far.  I took a soil sample to the extension office to have the soil tested to see exactly what type of fertilizer I'll need and if I need any lime.  I should hear back from them in about a week.  We're planning on planting a summer garden so we'll wait another month or so to plant.  I did go ahead and plant some spring vegetables- peas, lettuce and then I have three broccoli drills to plant today that a lady from church gave me.

If anyone has any gardening advice, I welcome it.  This is new territory for me...  And I'm currently looking for some mulching recommendations.  Any thoughts?

If this works you can all come over and pick some produce because I'm sure we'll have more than we can eat!