Garden and Nature

I have not been feeling my garden this year.  I planted, and pulled a few weeds, but it wasn't bringing me nearly the joy it did last year, so my plants are being choked out by weeds.  I even paid Emily and Grace to weed the garden that you can see from the road while we were gone, because it just looked so awful, and Grace and I had already cleared it once this summer!  We do have a pumpkin vine, but no pumpkins, or even female flowers, so probably no pumpkins this year. = (

That said, the girls did go out and collect tomatoes from one of the struggling plants, and they were so tasty! Our first heartvest of tomatoes this year.

A beautiful 'grocery store parking lot sunset' picture.

Our dead apple trees finally fell down, so we hired our lawn guy to take them out as well as the storm damaged tree. It was still alive, but he said it was going to damage the fence further if it fell any more.  So, it's gone now too, and our backyard looks so empty!  I think we might need to buy some baby trees and see if we can get some new ones growing!

The carrot plants went to seed last year, and seem to be growing really well!  I didn't cull them at all though, so they are small little things.

One of our landscaped plants, that we inherited with the house, makes these beautiful blooms every year, and every year I forget and find them beautiful!

I didn't include all of my nature pictures here this time, so there are still some mixed into our travel posts.

It's been a warm summer, which has been lovely for me, but I don't think that all of our plants have enjoyed it quite as much as I have!  Heading into a new season soon, which is sad, but I am looking forward to all the new colors!

later days

Garden Tomatoes

At this point my heartvests are mostly tomatoes, but I'm not complaining.  Each time I go out I love having more tomatoes than I can comfortably carry in my hands!  = )

 It's been a lovely tomato season, and our pumpkin is turning orange!

later days

Garden Heartvests

The tomato plant that Nicole gave me has been giving me tomatoes en masse!!!

We also got cucumbers and squash!

Do you see that bent cucumber in the middle?  It was sooooooo good. It tasted buttery!  I guess I saved some sort of seeds from ones that I bought, maybe an English cucumber? Sadly, we only got 2 of those, but they were the best!

Some of my larger tomatoes made for great caprese salads!

We have gotten so much basil from our indoor plants! I keep drying it, using the microwave, and adding it to jars, but thought I'd try a round the old-fashioned way!

I think maybe we ate the missing part of the heart before I could snap a photo, which is why this heartvest has a large gap?

I trades some of our tomato and squash bounty with Kristy for some zucchini and eggs!  Talk about living the dream!

This deer here likes to snack on my garden!

Lots and lots of tomatoes.  And the end of the peas.

New this year: corn!  Only two of my stalks actually produced, but we got three ears that I hand fertilized (in case the wind and rain didn't quite make it.) 

Alice and Grace enjoyed the first two, and Billy had laid claim to the third, but when we went out to check on it, some creature (see above) had pulled it off the stalk and it was on the ground. = (  

I tried to collect all the tomatoes at the bottom of this heart, but Grace thought they looked better spread out haphazardly, and who am I to argue?

I thought my pumpkin plant was going to skip out on the pumpkins this year (despite taking over the ground bed) but last week I spied a large green pumpkin!!!

Getting really close to the end of the season, but really enjoying all of these tasty tomatoes!

One more big haul today! There were many unripened ones still, and the tomato plants still have flowers!!!!

It's been a lovely season, though I didn't spend as much time in my garden this summer as I had hoped, but the plants grew and produced none-the-less!

later days

Garden Update

We are in the absolute best part of the summer: drowning in tomatoes!!!

This was the only round that yielded a squash, cucumber and tomato heartvest.

Then, tomatoes and cucumbers were plentiful.

Then, it was tomatoes.  Just tomatoes.  All the tomatoes.  I've given them to our neighbors on either side, sent them up to the school with the twins, and given them to my mom to bring to church.  So many tomatoes.  It's delicious and wonderful!!!

This tomato had the most interesting 'hat.'

The last of the cucumbers, and the first of the tomatoes from my bonus tomato plants!

Made some salsa, it turned out pretty tasty!  I'll use a few more jalapenos next round, it wasn't nearly spicy enough for Billy.

The first of the pumpkins are cut and displayed!!!  (and more tomatoes)

5 for now and it looks like we will get two more, once they turn.  The perfect number for our family!  I'm keeping some seeds this year (and hope they don't mildew) to try and grow even more next year.  I'm still dreaming of covering the stairs and porch with our pumpkin heartvest one day!

Oh, and more tomatoes. = )

later days

Garden Heartvests

Our little garden has been supplying with us with a steady stream of sugar snap peas and squash!

The morning we left for our camping trip, the rain had collected on the peas, and it just looked so pretty!

A heartvest of just peas!

When we got back from our camping trip, I found that 3 of our pumpkins had turned almost completely orange! (I hope this isn't a sign of an early fall!!! brrrr)

The cucumber plants (little yellow flowers) have interwoven themselves in the pumpkin leaves!

And the garden had quite a harvest for us!  Look at the first of the red tomatoes!!!! = )

A happy heartvest!

And more and more each day!  How lovely having a garden has been!

So far we've used the tomatoes in a caprese salad, for tacos and on Gyros! = )

later days