This month’s gardening experience has been a challenging one. With little rain and a lot of hot sunny days, our garden is looking a little toasted! We have watered quite often, but it has been disappointing. We decided to dig up our garden plot at the community garden early. We did not get much, but enough that we can at least enjoy a few meals.
I think it is important to share that not everything we do is a success, and that is part of homesteading. We have plenty of fails, including our garden this year, but it is an opportunity to learn. Most of the summer we have been buying from fellow farmers, but we are looking forward to trying again next year! I sure hope next summer is not full of rain!
“My garden is my favorite teacher.”
– Betsy Canas Garmon
Let me show you what happened to our garden this month!
Most potato plants we dug up had only 3 to 5 potatoes. I was rather surprised and expected much more like last year. Some plants did not have even one and some were all rotten underneath. It has been a confusing gardening season. Although we watered the garden often, I am thinking the heat scorched our delicious garden goodies and as a result, simply did not produce much.
A look at our potato patch. Just a few weeks ago, it was a luscious green and flowering with such potential and now, it looks like fall time when everything gets hit with frost.
These yukon gold potatoes look pretty nice, but most rotted unfortunately. We hardly picked half of a grocery bag full from our entire potato patch. We definitely do not grow enough to sustain us the winter, but usually grow enough that we can enjoy until December. I completely understand how the pioneers and early settlers must have felt when they worked hard all summer and had bare minimum to eat for the winter. Luckily we have the convenience of a grocery store.
The squash plants did not fare well either. The cucumbers hardly grew and died off as well.
The carrots did not produce much, but what we did get, we will add to our jars of dill pickles. They are the perfect size for pickling!
Our tri-colored carrots did alright, but it is hard to believe this is all we got from a four foot row!
The beans look great, but we did not get very much. Most of the bean seeds did not grow, even after we replanted three times. We got a small bowl full to enjoy though.
We took everything out of the garden, pulled the weeds and got the plot ready for next year. Over the next couple months until it snows, we will continue to pull the weeds but otherwise, we have completed our harvest at our community garden plot.
Let us know, how did your garden do this summer?
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours