Garden Update

I've been wanting to post an update on our garden but have hesitated because of my bad attitude.

I really want to complain. I feel like hosting a big pity party about the lack of rain and the destructive varmints. I'm really not enjoying walking in my garden right now.

But I know that God is Good, He always provides for our needs, and the weather is fully in His control.

So I'm going to try to share pictures of our garden with only minimal griping.

Sometimes, blogs can be a rosy picture of life, a snap shot of only the good days. These photos should demonstrate some of the realities of gardening.

To see our garden on a good year, go to last year's garden tour.

We just had our first corn on the cob. So yummy! Knowing corn will probably be scarce this year gave it extra sweetness. There are more empty places then usual in our garden since most of our successive plantings did not germinate.

Our new strawberry patch is hanging on but not thriving.

The tomatoes have grown huge and most are taller than me.  I'm trying to keep notes on the number of different varieties of tomatoes. So far I found that Bloody Butcher was the earliest, Pink Ponderosa is the sweetest (and the one the ground hog prefers) Marguerite Paste has dry rot the worst. The green beans are the greenest spot in the garden.

But our poor potato patch is rather depressing. We planted them late, which works most years. But this year, most just rotted in the ground.

The onions and garlic are harvested and hanging in the woodshed. They are beautiful, but my problem normally is storing them without rotting. Hopefully, they will keep well this year.

The grape vines are lush and beautiful. I thought it looked like we'd have a great harvest. But for some reason, there are only two grape clusters, one on each vine! Do you know any reason why? Last year we had a good crop and I tried to prune them the same way this year.

The raspberry patch that we started this spring from plants shared from friends is doing well. I drool just thinking of the fruit that we will get from these plants next year, Lord willing.

This year, I've neglected the children's garden. Something is eating their bean tepees and they don't provide much shade. But the children spend a lot of time digging holes here.

In the back of our pasture we planted some test plots. I have to keep reminding myself that these plots are extras and it doesn't matter if we harvest nothing.

But something is harvesting here. The heart of the corn is being eaten. We guess that deer are the culprit. They have knocked down much of the corn. Guess the dry weather has them searching for food as well.

The oat patch looks nice but there isn't many seed heads. Ed's farmer brother-in-law says that oats like cool wet weather. Ummm....not really a description of our summer.

Last night Ed cut the oats. It was fun to watch him! We piled it in the barn (chicken coop) to dry some more before we try to winnow it. We have no idea what we are doing, but we have fun trying! We have a huge pile of straw. Guess we'll find out if there is much grain.

The Three Sisters Garden doesn't look too bad. A few stalks of corn have been pulled down by coons but most are still standing.

The Indian corn and sunflowers in our last patch are surviving but the lima beans are a loss.

Anyway, hope that isn't too depressing. I have to remember all the wonderful gardens we have had the past years. More then once I've been reminded of our pioneer grandmothers who faced far more daunting challenges. Their winter survival depended upon the crops they grew. We will eat well regardless of our garden's production - but you still can pray that we get rain!

Linked to Tuesday Garden Party