Category: Vegetables

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The garden keeps giving

As the long summer days settle in, the garden has been more productive than ever. We are getting a steady crop of bell peppers, squash, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, banana peppers, and jalapeno peppers. Every time we walk past the beds, something new seems ready to pick.

Darrell checks the garden daily and has been putting in long hours gathering the harvest. The baskets fill up faster than we expect, and there is always another round coming behind it.

Mom and Nichel have been busy in the kitchen canning most of what comes in. This time of year we eat a lot of fresh vegetables, but even with that, the surplus adds up quickly. Whatever we do not eat or can gets cut up and frozen so we can enjoy it later in the year.

The garden just keeps producing, and we are grateful for the steady flow of fresh food. It is hard work, but it is the kind of work that pays you back in the best possible way.

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Indoor Growing Season Begins

As the outdoor growing season starts to slow down, we decided it was time to bring a little food production back inside. While we are not full into winter yet, the nights are cooler, the garden is winding down, and fresh greens will soon be harder to come by outdoors.

We picked up two small indoor hydroponic garden systems and set them up with lettuce and a mix of herbs. Hydroponics itself is not new to us. We ran a large aquaponics system back in Florida and learned a lot from it. This setup is much smaller and simpler, but the goal is similar. Keep fresh food growing year round in whatever way makes sense for the season.

The systems are already doing well. The lettuce is taking off and the herbs are settling in. It is been nice to watch steady growth again after the outdoor beds started to slow. Even small harvests feel meaningful when they are fresh and close at hand.

While these will never replace the garden or orchard, they fill an important gap. They give us fresh greens through the colder months and keep us connected to growing food even when the land outside is resting.

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A First Garden Season

Earlier this year, we installed six raised garden beds with no real expectations beyond learning as we went. This was our first true attempt at gardening on this land, and we knew there would be a learning curve.

As summer has rolled on, those beds have surprised us. The plants are thriving and the garden is producing better than we expected for a first year. Strawberries have taken off, ginger is growing strong, squash vines are stretching in every direction, and the tomato plants are loaded. Asparagus has produced steadily all season. A mix of herbs fills in the rest of the space, adding color and scent every time we walk past.

There have been mistakes along the way. Some things did better than others, and a few lessons came the hard way. But overall, the garden has been generous. Harvesting food that came straight from the soil we work every day never gets old.

These six raised beds are already teaching us what grows well here and what needs more attention. More than that, they are reminding us that steady effort adds up. For a first year, we are grateful for what they have given us.