Summer Garden

We tried our second garden this summer!  This was a trial and error year which was prompted by the Coronavirus global pandemic.  Back in April, supermarkets seemed to be clearing out - in addition to toilet paper, sanitizing supplies and even bread and baking supplies running out, locally we were low on things like eggs.  We know lots of people in our town that have chickens or ducks for eggs and I was deeply regretting not having our own chickens!  (Although, truthfully, I've heard some stories that make me think YIKES... the term "egg bound" springs to mind...)  But a conversation with my bestie about the value of being more self-sufficient got me motivated to start our first garden here!  And, with a long "pandemic summer" looming ahead of us I thought a summer garden would be a great project to keep the girls entertained.  (I was half right...)  My friend told me that seeds were also hard to come by this year, but we had a canister of (old) heirloom seeds that I had been holding on to for years.  We decided to build raised garden beds on the sunniest side of our house.  That side of the has a light layer of gravel on the ground (the former homeowner kept a camper over there) so this was an easy way to plant a garden without having to use a roto-tiller.  My husband built two simple wood framed boxes and we had a load of dirt delivered to fill them.  All of the time and effort to prep this year is done and next year will be a piece of cake!  We planted our seeds after doing some internet research about what each plant would need (amount of space, sun, etc.).  We also tried planting a few cut up potatoes with eyes, some green onions that we had used and started in a jar of water until roots had grown again.  

And we planted some already started mint and tomato plants.  The girls were able to watch the plants from their bedroom windows this summer which was fun for them and my eldest turned out to be quite the farmer!  The garden ended up being HER project this summer - her younger sister did a lot of cooking, which she enjoys, but she is not terribly interested in gardening.  But differences make life interesting!  Anyway, our old seeds were...too old.  But we got a few little potatoes, lots of mint, TONS of tomatoes, some basil...  All in all, not a bad harvest!  Of course our family farmer, happens to be a vegetarian who does not like tomatoes.  So I tried some new recipes that transformed tomatoes into things she would eat.  We tried fried green tomatoes which were delicious, Half Baked Harvest Easy Sheet Pan Tomato Herb Pizza which was a big hit (my husband liked it better than take-out!), roasted tomato pasta sauce, and tomorrow I will try my hand at fresh salsa.  We look forward to next year's garden, trying some new things (getting new seeds!) and learning from this year's experience.