Summer's Bounty

I've wanted to have a garden for quite awhile now, and finally got around to it this year.  Of course the year that I decide to move would be the year that I get around to wanting/having a garden. 

I settled for mostly container gardening this year.  We started with two tomato plants, two bell pepper plants, a zucchini, and a trashcan full of potatoes (a new method for growing potatoes that I found in this great book - Grow Great Grub).  The zucchini was an early casualty.  Apparently the soil that I used was not the greatest, and it showed in our yeild. Although, since we've moved and the plants are getting a bit more sunlight, they've done much better.  I'm sure that has been a big part of it.  But - it's been a nice learning experience. 

This weekend we decided to harvest our potatoes.  I had no idea how to tell when potatoes might be ready for harvest, but I had read that it should be around 90 to 100 days after planting.  It had been longer than that, so we thought we'd go ahead and give it a try.  Out of a whole 38 gallon trash can, here's what we got:

Not much.  But, it made a great meal of our version of Huevos Rancheros (made with all home-grown veggies (see below) and fresh eggs from my uncle's farm)

We encountered/resolved another tragedy this weekend.  When we moved the plants to our new house, we noticed that one of the tomato plants looked like it was perhaps being eaten by a tomato worm.  We looked and looked, but couldn't find him.  Then we moved, and got busy, and then I got sick, and we just didn't get around to conducting a hardcore search and rescue (search for the bug, rescue our plant). Our poor plant, meanwhile, was slowly being devoured by this little creature.

I finally found him.  Ick.

Ian picked him off and squashed him. (I would have done it if Ian hadn't been there.  But with Ian there, there really was no reason for me to have to do such a thing.) Guts went flying everywhere.  Double Ick.

In better gardening news: We also planted some things out at Ian's grandparents' farm.  Several varieties of peppers, a zucchini, a yellow summer squash, a cucumber, a watermelon, an eggplant and a couple of butternut squash.  We've had more success here than in our containers.  We brought this home the other day, we added it to another large bag of green anahiem peppers we had in the fridge and roasted all the peppers and froze them until I get around to making some sauce.

I think I have the spot for the in-ground garden at our house picked out.  We're planning on doing a raised-bed, since the soil out in our newer subdivision isn't very good.  Hopefully we'll have some great luck, and I can have enough to make pickles, canned tomotoes, etc. etc.