Garden Update

I haven't posted on the garden's progress since July, as, after that, I had a lot of produce from the garden to preserve. Just to give you an idea, I froze 4 cups of peas, 2 cups of raspberries, 6 cups of rhubarb, 4 cups of zucchini,  20 cups of green beans, 7 cups of pureed pumpkin, 10 cups of tomatoes, 12 cups of broccoli, and 16 cups of carrots.  I canned 2 pints of peas, 24 pints of green beans, 10 quarts of pumpkin, 7 pints of salsa, 16 half-pints of pizza sauce, 3 pints of pasta sauce, 8 half-pints of pumpkin butter, 5 half-pints of grape jelly, and 37 quarts of grape juice.  This was all from my yard.  As you'll recall, I live on less than a tenth of an acre.  I have a tiny, tiny yard.  And this list doesn't even get into all the drying I did.  I dried mostly herbs, and onions, rhubarb, sunflower seeds, and dandelion root.

A lot of the stuff I put up is gone.  We're down to the last bag of carrots and our beans are nearly half-gone, as is our broccoli.  Going to have to start shopping for produce in the grocery store pretty soon.

The garden plans for next year are coming along very well.  I have nearly all the seeds I'll need in May.  I have more specific plans drawn up to best utilize the space in the garden.  My patches of grass are going to be a bit smaller this year than they were last year.

My blueberry bushes should be bearing some fruit, and we've made big improvements in the strawberry patch, so hopefully we'll have a lot of fruit this year.  I'm hoping for a modest five pounds from the blueberry bushes, but we shall see.  I'm hoping the strawberries will hit their stride this year.  I'm considering using some of the grapes to make wine.  I'm also hoping to barter the chestnuts, as we don't much care for them.

I'll be making a list of the annual plants I plan to grow in a later post.

Peas!

A lot has been going on around the garden recently. We've been so busy I haven't blogged in over a week! My husband and my dad finally finished pulling out the ugly bushes we're replacing with a fence. They haven't started the fence yet, but we're getting closer. We may buy the materials this weekend.

I've planted quite a few things: about 65 onion sets, pea seeds, carrot seeds, spinach seeds, and the rest of my potatoes.

I planted the onion sets around the garden, here and there, where I could find space.

I planted two kinds of peas- one for canning, one for freezing- in the front yard, 36 of each variety. My husband made some trellises this weekend for the peas. The seedlings are coming up already. Peas are one of my favorite plants. I think the way a pea plant grows, from infancy all the way to old age, is beautiful. I love the flowers they set. Oddly, pea flowers are one of my favorite flowers. Of coarse, you can't beat the taste of freshly picked peas, either. Sugar snap are my favorite for fresh eating.

I planted half my carrot seeds so far. I've got to finish this week some time. I want to get them in early because last year I got them in late and they were very small.

The spinach and the rest of the potatoes are on the balcony. I put the spinach seeds in a window box that I set on the ground. The spinach seems to prefer a bit more shade, so I placed two potato buckets on either side of the spinach. I've got 4 potato buckets altogether. The potato buckets are standard-size plastic outdoor garbage bins with holes near the bottom.

I also planted a bunch of seeds inside for transplanting outside in a few weeks when the weather gets warmer.