Watching the Garden Grow

It has been a good growing year for the vegetable garden.  The plants are huge and everything looks good.  At the risk of jinxing myself, I am happy to report that the garden does not have any major pest, bug or disease issues.  The weeds are growing just as vigorously as the vegetable plants, however, so finding the time to weed is a necessity.

The tomatoes are strong and healthy and have set many tomatoes already.  I am keeping my fingers crossed because it was around this time last year that some sort of blight set in and severely diminished my harvest.

I am growing tomatillos this year and they apparently really like it in my garden.  They are chest high and loaded with blossoms and have already set several fruits.

The tomatillos under the papery husk make the most amazing green salsa.  I’ll share the recipe when I start preserving.

This year is my first attempt at growing potatoes and the plant size surprises me.  I had no idea they would be so big and take up so much space.  I dug up one plant last night and discovered that we already have nice sized potatoes for eating.

The squash and cucumbers are doing well climbing up their supports.

And the zucchini has started to produce prolifically.  What to do with all that zucchini?  I ask myself this every year.  Any ideas?

Aside from one row of bush beans, we planted pole beans this year.  Our string bean crop last year suffered because it was a wet summer and the overgrown plants started molding underneath and rotting the beans.  I am optimistic that the pole beans, with the increased air flow, will be heavy producers in a few weeks.

Even my herbs are doing well.  This rosemary and oregano plant were afterthoughts that I picked up while at the nursery buying some annuals.  They also seem very happy where I stuck them in the ground near the carrots.

So, much to my delight, the vegetable garden is coming along quite nicely.  My biggest challenge now, besides keeping the weeds under control, is trying to harvest, eat or preserve as much as possible.