Gardening Efforts

I really wish that springtime lasted longer. Before I had much time to think it was summer, the weather was hot, and what starters I had managed to start needed to be in the ground.

We ended up fighting with weeds constantly and ran out of time to plant much in the big garden space in the front of the property, so I crammed as many plants in an old burn pile dirt patch as I could. I know I overcrowded the squash, but that hasn't stopped the zucchini, cucumbers, acorn squash, sugar pumpkins and butternut squash from spreading over every inch of space available. The funniest thing about it all- zucchini and cucumber are Brian's least favorite vegetables and they turned out to be the most plentiful this season. I even had to tear out the cucumber plants early because I couldn't use them all and couldn't find anyone to take the extras (they all had their own to deal with or didn't like making pickles).

June 23, 2013

I went away for 10 days in July, right as the plants started producing, and told the neighbors to eat whatever they wanted from the garden. They couldn't have picked much because this is what I came home to! 

And here is the garden on August 3, 2013. We've made a few changes since; pulled out some unproductive plants and let the others take over. Some mystery squash seeds I got from a coworker of Brian's ended up being acorn squash, so now I have 8 acorn squash plants. That is way more than 2 people need! We will have plenty to share. 

My gardening efforts this year were definitely less than I had expected, and maybe I did in fact bite off more than I could chew. But, considering I didn't fertilize, occasionally let the weeds take over, and sometimes would forget to water, the garden did pretty darn well- and it's not winter squash season quite yet.