The Garden - Growing our own Food

This year marked the first full garden growing season that I have been living with Chrissy. While I don't consider myself in any way to be a green thumb I do enjoy tending to plants. Whether it was helping dad trim tower poplars along the highway at Almi Campground, planting chokecherrie shelter-belts  near Burton Lake with Auntie Marian & Uncle George or picking apples in  Humboldt I like the effects that plants have on the land and the obvious results of interacting with plants.

We planted our garden around the first week of June once the frost was out of the ground and the nights got warmer. The tomatoes were started by Chrissy's Father in mid march and were well established by the time we got them. Other than the tomatoes and some green peppers all of the other garden veg came from seed.

The garden on June 23rd. 

Our sometime sentinel and neighborhood cat, Samson (aka Catballdoshia - due to his tomcat characteristics)  keeping watch for seed stealing birds.

Our most prolific plant: Dill that 'volunteers' (we don't plant it, it just comes up).

Water testing the tents in our urban jungle before heading out camping (July 16).

Dill, Green Beans and Tomatoes on July 23rd (one month pf growth from the first pic).

Note the little white flowers - that is our radishes gone to seed (July 23).

The bell pepper pot (July 23).

A few years back Chrissy got a hybrid spliced apple tree that has 5 different types of apples. It really produced this year but I think the tree looks funny as it is spindly (maybe due to the splicing) and the branches hang low just off the ground.

As last year Chrissy had problems with rabbits I grew swiss chard and lettuce in boxes so I could pull them on to the deck off the ground. It was either growing in boxes or getting a bobcat (Catballdochia was slacking). As you can see the boxes worked well (Aug. 2).

Finally the radishes stopped blooming and we thought it was about time to 'harvest' them. I thought it quite funny the size of the plant versus the 'veggie' root. From tip to tip they were well over 4 ft tall and you can see how it towers over the railing and BBQ (Aug. 9).

Left - All of the radish plants .......  Right - The radish bounty

In actuality we never got any edible radishes at all, they were either wormy or wooden.

Turnips, Beans Swiss Chard and Carrots for supper (August).

The apple tree bowed by its own weight.

Fistful of apple.

Backyard bounty - apples, white turnips, beets, tomatoes, carrots, squash (Sept. 3)

 Bell pepper and partial tomato harvest (Sept. 9).

'Volunteer' sunflower seed in the garden (Sept. 9).

We were happy with our overall garden but were completely blown away by the amount of tomatoes we got. Christina's father and his tomato incubation earns him the title of "Tomato Whisperer". 

All of our tomatoes, that we hadn't already eaten or given away, on October 2nd. 

It's been a challenge getting rid of them all - lots of tomato toast, new recipes and canning (blog to come).

Now, nearly a month later we still have many tomatoes left...if only we had that many carrots or turnips. Oh well, I will just need to plant more of those next year.