I haven’t spent as much time in the kitchen the past couple of days, but not because I haven’t wanted to. I just felt I owed it to my beautiful garden to spend some time in there, taking care of what will eventually find its way into my kitchen. Not to mention, I’m slightly addicted.
We’ve had so much rain lately, that I’m playing a game with the weeds, which is not fun, but at the same time, all that rain is so incredibly good for these plants that I don’t mind the weeds. Well, I mind them, I am just more tolerating at the moment.
After three days of rain, my garden just literally burst forth with vegetables and fruit at every turn and I couldn’t be more excited about it.
Banana Peppers
While I have several banana peppers growing these two are actually one in the same. These photos were taken 3 days apart after 2 full days of nothing but rain. As you can see Mr. Banana Pepper definitely loved that rain.
Blueberries
These are my babies this summer. I am so excited by the sheer number of blueberries we will be ending up with, which is sure to be turned into jelly’s, muffins, pancakes, drinks and more.
I have a fantastic Lemon/Blueberry Drink coming to the blog soon.
Here’s a large portion of one of the bushes. If you look closely you can clearly see how many are growing.
Grapes
Yep. Look at those little babies… I cannot wait until these are growing bigger. The vines have several large clusters, but this is our first year with these guys so I am not sure how much they will produce. These are Riesling grapes.
Jalapenos
Tomatoes and Cherry Tomatoes
Herbs
Lavender & Lemon Thyme
Purple Basil
My purple basil has not really loved the rain so much, just a bit too much for his liking.
I’m going to be pulling leaves and freezing them so I don’t lose any.
We also have mint, sweet basil, rosemary, chives, thyme, and a few others.
Zucchini & Squash
We also have acorn squash and spaghetti squash. Next year we will be adding butternut squash to the garden.
And here is a headache inducing picture of one half of the garden (this was taken about 3 weeks ago, so a lot has changed and even a few plants have been moved. You can see in the picture what is growing. The other side not in the picture has the blueberry bushes, grapes, onions, green onions, garlic, squash, more tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber, sweet potatoes, and a few others.
The strange watermelon hybrid has been since removed from the garden and transferred to another area of the yard to see what it does. We really don’t think it’s going to do anything, since it didn’t last year.
Nancy @ gottagetbaked
WOW! I am so impressed with your garden, Nicole! Not only do you have 20 different varieties of fruit ‘n vegetables planted (or at least it feels that way) but they’re all growing! I’ve spoken many times about my thumb of death – there’s no way I’d have a thriving, beautiful, successful garden like this one! Good job, lady! There’s nothing like fresh, home-grown produce. My little sister’s friend’s mom had a beautiful garden and people from the neighbourhood used to go and help themselves to free veggies. Then she put up a giant fence to keep all the freeloaders out. I hope that doesn’t happen to you 😉 I can’t wait to see all the dishes you’ll make with all of this.
Nicole Cook
I had a green thumb of death until a few years ago and I was determined to grow our own food. That determination did result in some casualties along the way and I still sometimes have hit or misses along the way, but overall I am content. It’s a little therapeutic for me at this point.
I can’t wait to see it all really take off. 🙂
Kayle (The Cooking Actress)
OMG it’s beautiful, I’m not jealous of the work but I’m jealous of the “fruits” of your labor ;P
Nicole Cook
Hehe Thanks Kayle. It’s a lot of work, and each year I make it bigger, but yes — the “fruits” of my labor are worth it in the end 😀
Hope all is good with you!
Helene D'souza
2 weeks ago I weeded my garden and now it looks like a jungle again. I should spend some more time in the garden just like you. I think so I own that my plants the problem is that they grow so quickly recently and there are weird creatures roaming about. O.O
I am impressed Nicole! The blueberries are huge, never seen such big ones. Any idea where the purple basil comes from? It looks a bit like the indian krishna holy basil. I wish I had lavender and thyme in my garden.
Nice one thank you for sharing!
Nicole Cook
Oh I feel your pain. No joke. The weeds are a constant fight and while I might have spent some time lately, there will be times where it will become almost over run. My least favorite part of gardening, but I know I simply must. I’m not sure where the purple basil comes from. Honestly, this is the first year we did it… saw it growing at the green house and said… that is gorgeous, I want it. I didn’t even care if it tasted good (it does!) I just loved the color! haha Thanks Helene!
Brandie
Looking Good
Nicole Cook
Thanks Brandie!
Alaiyo Kiasi
What an absolutely beautiful garden. It’s so neat and tidy as well (unlike my veggie garden). Kudos!
Alaiyo
Nicole Cook
Alaiyo, thank you so much. It’s not as tidy as you think. We did have to move a few things around 😉 LOL
Laura @ Family Spice
We don’t get the rain you do, so my garden is struggling even with our new drip system. We’ve got six varieties of tomatoes (hee hee!), cucumbers, carrots, squash, strawberries, green beans, kale, asparagus, artichoke, blackberries, blueberries, eggplant and a slew of fresh herbs! LOVE summer time!
Nicole Cook
Ooooh you have a few things I want to add next year and a few I’m still waiting to plant. I wish I had a drip system. We get rain but I usually have to go out every morning and stand there and water the garden. It’s oh so much fun, but the rewards are worth it 😉 Good luck with your garden Laura!
Dianne
We have been gardening for some years now. I used to garden a 20’x40′ plot, but as I get older I’m down-sizing! We’ve cut this plot in half and I have several raised beds. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, eggplants and herb are our main plantings. I have a question for you…..What do you do about squash bugs? I’m losing my zucchini to them again this year!! I’ve tried a couple different pestisides, but it doesn’t seem to harm them. 🙁