It's Been A Long While

It's been a long while since I posted last. What has kept us so busy is that we plant gardens in the Spring. This year, it seems they occupied our time more than usual. The problem is weeds. Lots and lots of weeds. Here in SC, we can have no weeds one day and the next day they start shooting up. I come home from work and pull some. Hubby, who is retired, pulls some during the day when he's not doing a chore or two. It's constant and unforgiving work. However, the upside is that we get veggies and fruit. Yeah!

First, let me say that we had a really wet Spring. We got a late start on planting and we didn't do too bad considering we couldn't plant when we wanted to. Some of the veggies couldn't recoup from the water and some died. That was our luck this year.

Here are some pics of what we started with this past Spring. I have a cage that I made for sweet potatoes. I didn't plant any this year, but I put my daikon seeds and a couple of potatoes that were sprouting in the house. I got only one daikon. The heat came and the rest bolted quickly. No potatoes. They died.

Daikon and Lonely Potato

 My hubby called this the "Indian Burial Ground". The teepees in the foreground are for pole beans. The teepees in the background are for cucumbers. The story here is our weather was really weird this year. We go rain and the cukes drowned, except for two plants. Those two plants gave us a few really nice cukes this summer. The pole beans, green beans and carrots were mowed down by rabbits in one night. They were only about 6" high and they were gone. Them pesky wabbits!

Indian Burial Ground

 Some of the best tools I own! Hubby had a broken rake that he was going to throw away. I asked if he would make me a 4-prong rake on a stick so I can get between plants. One day, he cut and welded and made these two. Boy can they yank weeds out of the ground with little effort!!!

Hubby's Hand Rakes

 Radishes and more radishes. I didn't think I'd get any because we have moles. The moles must not like radishes. We were grateful for these.

Radishes

 Here is one of our strawberry patches. We did really well this year with them. We had some slugs, rabbits, squirrels and birds getting to them. We managed to get about a pint to a quart every night when they started bearing. They bore clear into July. These are Ozark Beauty everbearers. Love them!

Ozark Beauty Strawberries

 My herb patch / nursery. Foreground large green patch is oregano. I harvested, dried and froze a lot for this Winter. Garlic chives looks like hair. This stays pretty much just like this all year 'round down here. Back right corner is thyme. I didn't get anything much from this this year. I don't use much thyme.

Herb Garden

More Radishes

We planted tomatoes, lettuce, yellow squash and mild banana peppers. The tomatoes are being scorched by the heat and the stinkbugs are mating and sucking the juice from them. Yuck! That really ruins the tomatoes. We got very little lettuce because of the heat scorching the leaves. The squash did well. The peppers are still bearing.

That was our Spring and Summer in our food garden.

Take care.

Blessings from Our Garden

Here are some pics of what we've been getting from our garden for the past several days.

Monday's Picks

Here we have Ozark Beauty strawberries...about a pint, a few leaves of Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, and the last bit of radishes worth anything.

This year, the strawberries are abundant, but they are malformed. I think it's because we had warm weather and cold weather and back and forth for a couple of months. The plants would bloom then freeze. This happened several times and I had to remove the flowers every time. Some of the berries are really nice. Some are small. Anyhow, they all taste the same and I'm not out to impress anyone with my berries. We pick them a little yellow, as you see. This is because the birds will get to them if they are really red. Right now, slugs are the enemy. We'll eat these on Monday after they ripen overnight.

Tuesday's Pick

We have about a pint and a half of nice strawberries here. These will be eaten on Tuesday. Sunday, I made a vanilla pound cake from a very old recipe book that I have. It makes the most wonderful shortcake for berries! Yummy!

Today's Picks

There is about a half-pint of strawberries here. This is the first picking of peas. There is a gardening show on TV called Making It Grow. It is on on Tuesday nights at 7pm. I learned when to plant the peas from listening to the experts saying when they plant. Here in SC, you actually plant them in February! It worked. The plants are healthy, large and are filled with flowers and ripening pods. I had only about a cup of peas from this shelling. I put them into the freezer so I can get enough either for a meal or two, or use them in minestrone soup that I make. Next year, we're putting in a lot more peas. We're also going to plant them on a higher fencing as they are about 1-1/2 feet above the fence we have them on. Right now they're on a 2-foot fence.

I hope you enjoyed the pics that I finally got to take. I hope YOUR garden is doing well if you live in the Southern regions like we do.

Take care.