How Does Our Garden Grow?

I’m impatient. Very few of you probably know that.

I also worry. I know, it’s news to you.

So as I was looking at our hastily planted garden (planted amid all of our moving activity) I was concerned that our efforts would be somewhat in vain this year.  Shouldn’t I have more green tomatoes? What happened to all my pickling cucumber starts? Why did I forget to plant a zucchini?

To help me learn not to be too concerned I thought I would take pictures of the plants that are growing at this time. Then at the end of August or the beginning of September I’ll take more pictures of ALL the produce we will have. Each year I will go back to this post and tell myself that I shouldn’t be concerned about not having enough produce.

So here is the garden as it looks in the middle of July 2014….

These are potato plants. I think they are growing nicely. This is our first time planting potatoes. My friend Bryn gave us the spuds.

We love rhubarb and before I left Portland I purchased four plants. They are looking good. It will be a few years before we can harvest much from them.

Here is a tomatillo plant. Why do I need tomatillos? Because they are a major ingredient in this awesome salsa recipe that my friend Kirsten gave me a couple of years ago. The fruit looks like little Chinese lanterns. Inside is a teeny tiny tomatillo that will grow and fill in that “lantern”.

Yeah. Bees. You go bee. Keep pollinating. Side note: some day I would like to have a bee hive or two. I go through a lot of raw local honey each year.

Here is a wee little plum tomato. I think it is very lonely. Get to work all you other tomato plants.

Kirsten gave us six pepper plants. Thankfully one of them was a jalapeno. Some critter ate my one and only jalapeno down to the ground. This isn’t the jalapeno but whatever it is it looks like it will be spicy.

These tomato plants that are doing so well were given to me by Bryn.

This one looks like it will be ripe soon.

Mmmm. Nice and big tomatoes here.

Sun gold. They are ready to eat.

I can’t take any credit for this sunflower. It is a volunteer.

Here is some squash growing up a ladder. I don’t actually see any squash on it yet. Just flowers. As I look at this picture I realize that we didn’t cover the ladder with wire to help the plants climb. Can’t remember EVERYTHING.

Yeah. A cucumber. This is a really good Japanese cucumber. Don’t ask me the name. The seed packet is in a yet to be unpacked box somewhere. It is however the best tasting cucumber I’ve ever eaten.

These next two pictures are winter squash of some sort. Bryn very generously gave us a bunch of winter squash starts. We love winter squash. Ok, Nicholas doesn’t but the rest of us do.

This is my only surviving pickling cucumber plant. I made pickles for the first time last summer and we loved all of them. Oh well. You win some and you lose some.

Basil. Lots of basil.

Now comes the fruit portion of our garden. This was all here when we bought the house so I can’t take any credit for the prolific production.

Boysenberries. Or are they Marion berries? Who cares. They taste great.

Apples. Multiple apple trees. I have a list of the types of apples they planted. I just don’t know which tree is which. My plan is to try to figure out what type of apple is growing on each tree and then label the tree.

I’m not a fan of apple pie so I think the majority of the apples will be dried and also turned into fruit leather. The goats will get some as well.

Here is one of two plum trees. I think this might be a brooks plum. They will be dried and also frozen for plum crisps in the winter.

Pears. Yummy.

And last but not least, figs. There are not very many on this tree. It is being crowded by another tree. We will probably need to do some trimming to get it some more light.

Well I do know that God always provides what we need. What we end up with this summer will be exactly what we need. The trick is to control your “wants”.

Best gardening prayers from your farming friends here at Salt Creek Farm.

Karen