8.24.2011

Ripe

Two cherry tomatoes off the vine today. I ate them before I could photograph them for you!

8.20.2011

Dry Spell

OK, it's time for me to admit why I haven't been posting much this year. It's not because I haven't had time or have been so busy with projects or anything like that. The fact is, my little homestead is quite barren this year. I have no garden to speak of this year!

It's the first time since we moved into this house that we do not have a garden. It wasn't supposed to be this way. We had great plans for this year. Unfortunately I kinda blew it. We had planned a HUGE garden with our neighbors in an empty lot next to their house. It wasn't until months and months of wet late spring weather (into the end of June) that I realized my mistake.

After attempting to till the new garden space after a few sunny days in early June, I realized we should have done this last fall.... Ugh. What a realization to have. Especially since the ground could not be worked despite the break in the weather. It was still too wet. I didn't think about the fact that most of the ground around here is really heavy on the clay side. Our own garden had been supplemented and worked for years before we got here.

Our plans had been to let our own garden beds go follow this year and to build permanent raised beds where they are. So no garden. No lovely mid-summer produce to photograph and experiment in the kitchen with.

We have been making due with an abundance of chard, gifts from the neighbor's own raised bed, and such. It has really hit home to me too how much joy I get from being in the garden too. Not just from the produce, but from just being out there and surrounded by the bees, hummingbirds, flowers and smells.

Well, hopefully soon we will get a chance to make those permanent beds and you'll get some reports from about how that goes. Maybe even some winter garden pictures. Oh, and maybe we'll get those beds prepped in the neighbor's lot too.