August Garden

Enter at your own risk. We haven't been in the garden as much as we should lately. It's quite weedy. The kids will quickly run out and fill their baskets with goodies and head back in with delicious treasures for me to freeze or can. Last weekend, it was corn, this week, more green beans. The beans have surprised me. I thought we'd have a terrible harvest, so I planted more. The second planting isn't ready yet; but the first is still yielding beautiful beans. Mostly, the garden is growing weeds. Since we haven't played in the garden much, we lost control of the weeds. The soft soil and hay/straw cover make pulling them easy though.

Our watermelons are growing bigger each day. Eli counted 24 melons.

We have lots of tomatoes; however, the cooler summer is causing them to take forever to ripen. Not to mention, our late planting. We enjoy fried green tomatoes and tomato relish. So, none will go to waste. Next year, though, the tomatoes are going in earlier. I'm feeling a little impatient.

The lettuce is overgrown and the spinach has started seeding. I think we'll go ahead and plant another salad bed before the season is over.

Okra is one of our "fun" plantings. We usually grab a few and fry them the same as tomatoes. We don't plant enough to freeze or dehydrate. Okra flowers are so pretty.

We have two pumpkin patches. One has pie pumpkins planted. We found several little pumpkins peeking out behind their flowers. Our other patch is for jack-o-lanterns. We planted them late so our pumpkins will be here in October instead of August. We usually get excited and plant them way to early. What's left of the pumpkins will be chicken treats.

Potatoes are ready. We've been grabbing some when we need them for a meal. I think this year, we will can them instead of keeping them in the pantry. Next year, we hope to plant more potatoes.

Our second green bean planting is filled with three varieties. We tried a purple bean this year. The little purple flowers give me hope that beans will be here soon.

The kids planted corn with Da this year. It turned out fantastic. They picked 151 ears from four rows. That gave us about 28 quarts of frozen corn. We still have to pick a few more rows. Oh my!

Our perennial and herb bed turned seeds into beautiful flowers. Next spring the volunteer tomatoes will be removed and a variety of colors will be added. I'm excited to attract more beneficial insects and bees to the garden.

Our second pea planting is not doing as well as the first. Nor is our second beet planting. But, there are enough peas to provide for a few suppers.

We have truly been blessed in the garden this year. The pests were not a problem, we've had great yields, and have already put up a lot of winter food. The children like pointing out everything on their dinner plates that come from home. From the meat to the vegetables, this has been a good year.

Sometimes you have to take a break from the garden and play in the rain. Or, take pictures of children playing in the rain.