I'll tell you how my garden grows. With mildew and blight and dead plants all in a row.

Our poor little garden is a mess. Our zucchini plants were attacked and destroyed by squash bugs. Our cucumbers succumbed to powdery mildew. And now our tomatoes are being overcome by the blight.

The blight! That sounds so old-fashioned!

We didn't mind giving up the zucchini. And we ripped out the cucumbers and recently planted more. But we aren't giving up on our tomatoes as easily. We are fighting the blight with chemicals in the hopes of saving them. (I've never understood all the fuss over organic anyway!)

Last year we had tomatoes into November. November! This year, we'll be lucky if we have tomatoes for one more week. And to add insult to injury, a couple of nights ago as Sarah was eating a bowl of my delicious homemade tomato soup she said, "Ewwww. This doesn't taste like real tomato soup."

And if by "real" she means tasteless Campbell's tomato soup, I suppose she's right. Because for my not real tomato soup I roast the tomatoes with garlic and onions and red peppers before pureeing them with my emulsion hand blender. (Thanks, Aunt Cathy!)

Perhaps one day she will appreciate my tomato soup. But for now, I guess we will stick to Campbell's - it's easier anyway!

Ehhhhh....What's up doc?

We picked our carrots yesterday and they all looked like this. Every single one of them.

Did we do something wrong?

Is this the way homegrown carrots are supposed to look? If so, I think I'll just stick to buying them at the grocery store!

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary...

Here's a picture of our adorable little garden! Isn't it cute?



My husband has been planting, weeding, watering and fertilizing for the last 6 weeks or so and I'm very proud of his efforts.

It may not look big but we've got lots going on in our little garden:

4 different varieties of tomatoes
Green beans
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Cilantro
Rosemary
Basil
Parsley
Watermelon

Some of the items were started from seeds and others were started as plants.

I've got lots of basil right now and lots of green tomatoes that we are anxiously waiting on to turn red so we can start having soups, sauces and of course, mater sammiches!

This is our first attempt at anything other than tomatoes so we are taking notes so that next we can improve on our efforts.

Two of the things we have learned so far...

We have already harvested lots and lots of zucchini and we discovered that none of us really like it. So I don't think we will be planting that next year. (And I wasn't too disappointed when squash bugs got to one of our zucchini plants and we had to remove it.)

We planted the green beans and the cucumbers on the inside row. Next year we will be planting them on an outside row so that they will be easier to pick. Or maybe just make our rows a little bigger. The kids are having a hard time helping us to pick these things because they are hard to get to being in the center of the garden.

This garden is helping us get us fresh produce cheaply, it's been fun for the kids and I think my husband has a new hobby now!

He mentioned the other day that he would like to build a brick fenced in area and plant an English garden.

Momma likes flowers but I'm not sure if Daddy knows how to lay bricks. One hobby at a time, honey!