The Kitchen Garden: 2014

I haven't posted much this summer about our Kitchen Garden. It's largely my husband's domain, although I designed and laid out the garden, and I help him by starting seeds occasionally, replenishing the mulch in the paths and the compost in the beds, plus other random tasks. But I confess that I'm usually so much more enchanted with the state of my flowers in bloom that I've largely neglected to post photos of the vegetables that we've grown.

Here are a few photos of our vegetable bounty from the last month or two:

A photo from back in July of the "greens" section of the Kitchen Garden: onions, celery, cabbage, chard, Brussels sprouts and carrots in the center.

Okra in August. This usually grows pretty well for us (and it's delicious pan-fried in oil with onions and curry powder), but this year we allowed it to be shaded out by the numerous self-seeded sunflowers that grew up around the okra plants (so pretty!), and unfortunately the plants didn't bear much. We'll know better next year: Okra like sunshine!

Pumpkins and watermelons last month.

Potatoes harvested in late August.

When we pulled out the superfluous sunflowers, we found this hoard of old cucumbers that my son had grown and left in a pile, which we thought was funny.

Eggplant.

Some beautiful tomatoes.

The peppers did very well this year too.

Pumpkins against a backdrop of sweet corn gone over. We'll let the corn stalks stand
over winter to provide some windbreak for the chicken pen behind (to the south).

Winter squash.

Rainbow-colored chard. Quite pretty, I think.

A photo of the overall layout of the Kitchen Garden, taken in July. The front two rows (eight beds) are for cutting flowers (my domain), although I believe that I'm going to downsize next spring, using only the first four beds on the left. I just don't need that many flowers, and I know I can grow them more efficiently (and with less work) in half the space. I'll have fun over winter re-designing these beds on paper and deciding which flowers I like best for cutting.

My husband and I are still learning much about vegetable growing, and we make mistakes all the time. But I believe that we're becoming more knowledgeable each year, and the Kitchen Garden improves each season.

Thanks for reading! -Beth