The veggie garden is all green in May

I'll have tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, purple hull peas and more soon... but for now, everything I'm cutting from the garden is green.

Basil, green beans and parsley, all cut for meals on Sunday.
It was so nice to have an extra day to spend with Clara this weekend! Hope you all had a great weekend and remembered our soldiers.

Summer vegetable garden winding down

Happy fall, y'all! It's finally cool here (70s), but it still hasn't really rained in about two months. Everything - even established trees - looks awful. I ripped up the brown tomato and cucumber vines today, plus woody bean remnants. Sad day for me, but happy day for the compost pile.

Last year it was almost two months from this time when the garden looked this empty. Most of the veggies just couldn't hang on with the extreme drought and the neglect they experienced this year.
I did manage to recover some (dried) pinkeye purple hull peas for planting next year...
These were so good fresh this summer and withstood the weather for a long time.

This ginger is from a grocery store knob that we accidentally left on top of the refrigerator in a plastic bag. It sprouted and I planted it in the raised bed a few months ago. Not sure what to do with it this winter (?).

Eggplants and bell peppers are still hanging on:

Omelet peppers. Mmmmm.

Did you know the inside of purple bell peppers is green?

Neglected serranos (from seed) turning rainbow colors:

A couple of sungold are the only tomato plants (of about 12) hanging on. These have been so easy and prolific. Definitely a keeper.

Thank you to all of you who've made comments or asked about the pregnancy. Everything is still going great, and little Clara is due in January! Her room is a very garden-fresh shade of green!

Have a great week :)

Back to the garden!

It's been a busy summer (more on that soon), but I didn't realize it had been nearly a month since my last post - yikes! If anyone is still reading, here is a snapshot of what's happening in our garden in hot, hot July:

Above: I bought this veronica last year because it was covered with bees at the nursery. Looks like that wasn't a fluke.
Below: orange "roadside" daylilies, pink double delight coneflowers, and shasta daisies brighten up the front yard.

The vegetable garden is mostly thriving, with the exception of the epic failure of corn. These sungold cherry tomatoes are delicious and prolific. A keeper for sure.

Dinner tonight included three crops from our garden: snap beans, potatoes and pinkeye purple hull peas. I cooked the beans and potatoes in homemade vegetable stock for 30 minutes (with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper). For the peas, I sauteed yellow onion and jalapeno in butter, then added hot water, shelled peas, and s&p. Cooked for about 30 minutes, then stirred in chopped tomato just before serving.

Our pond is doing surprisingly well in the midst of its first hot summer. We haven't had an algae problem yet, and the three original fish are still kicking. Here is the pond last August, right after we finished installing it:

And here it is now! A beautyberry, a turks cap hibiscus, and a confederate rose hibiscus frame the pond and help hide the fence. In the pond are a mini water lily (helvola), Louisiana irises dug out of my mom's lake, pickerel rush, and a variety of annual floating plants.

Thanks for sticking with me though my inadvertently long break! Happy 4th!

Wordless Wednesday

Sheets: Not just for beds and ghost costumes!

I'm a little impatient. Luckily, this year the only tender thing I planted outside before our last frost date was a bed of these bush beans:
A few weeks later, sure enough, it's going to freeze tonight! Luckily, I have a plan to protect this bed - an old sheet! (Get it? Sheet... bed...)

I also covered the young blueberry bushes with pillowcases:

There are tons of baby blueberries on these bushes. I lost a few in the covering process, but could lose a lot more if the exposed plants were subjected to frost.

I also covered some newly planted hydrangeas, just to be on the safe side, and my bed of strawberries - I didn't want to risk losing the baby berries or the profusion of blooms. Keep your fingers crossed with me!