Farm Report: It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

In a "normal" year, those posts you see here wouldn't be visible underneath all the green.

That pretty much sums our garden up this year.  We started with a bang - great warm weather, decent rain - everything took and off.  There were vision of us being buried under mountains of tomatoes and chard dancing in our heads.  When what to our wondering eyes should appear, but lots of big, dark, black thunderclouds.  They filled us with dread. 

Sorry, my poetic side just kind-of took off right there.

June and July proved to be wet, wet, wet.  Good for plants for the most part, just not our garden which sits VERY low.

This is not to say things are all lost on the Little Farm.  Take a glance at "Harvest Count" on the sidebar.  We have been eating well and will continue to do so as the days grow colder.  Some of the new things we tried this year have also turned out great.  Then there is the simple fact that gardens, even if they don't bury you in beans every year, are pretty to look and are just good things to have around.

Here's some photos of how things have looked around here in the past few weeks.

The kale is just starting to grow well.  The swiss chard grew tall, but the leaves were full of brown yucky dots.

The tomato vines never made it up to the tops of the posts like we'd planned.  It was our first time trying to grow "walls" of tomatoes.  I liked the idea.  We'll try it again next year and pray for less rain.

Heirloom sweet peppers. These are delicious! None of our peppers have blossomed for weeks, but in the past few days I've noticed lots of little buds. Yeah!

Listrada de Gandia.  That's some pretty eggplant!

This is Farmer Ron's favorite plot this year.  From near to far: nasturtiums (for color and salads), Thai basil, Italian basil (on left), eggplant (on right), tomatoes.  The kids love to freak their friends out by walking in the garden and eating the nasturtium flowers.

Tomatoes, bush green beans (back left) and soy beans (back right).  The soy beans are one of Farmer Ron's experiments this year.  They growing great.   Now, I just need to figure out what to do with them.

Remember my infatuation with edible landscaping?  Here's what we got in year one.  I love the pole beans climbing the side of the garage.  So pretty and they've produced well to boot.  The littlest Young'un has eaten tons of snacks off these vines when she's taking a break from the sandbox.  They'll be more edible landscaping around the Little Farm next year for sure!

We've just planted some more lettuce, kale, peas, swiss chard, bush and pole beans.  Some of them will produce yet this year.  Then beans may be a bit of a stretch, but hey, we're "farmers."  We like to gamble now and then.