Rain, rain, go away!

We've had almost two full weeks of rain every day. Blah!! The garden is happy though. I think the peas are on their way out. We see fewer and fewer new ones each day. I read in a book that MIL gave me about how to properly stake up the pea plants, so next year that will be a little nicer. The pumpkin plants are doing well, big flower, and big, dominating leaves and vines. I fear they are overwhelming the carrots, which have tons of greens but are too close together so I don't have a lot of hope for them anyway. The huge peas and poorly thinned carrots seem to have done a bit of a number on the green beans as well. They started off strong, but now the plants are all yellowish and the beans are pretty small. I think they probably needed more space and more sunshine (don't we all these days!!) My replanted tomato plant is thriving again and the two from Julie are starting to flower as well. C'mon tomatoes!! I LOVE eating salad for lunch with veggies fresh from the garden. Next year I'm going to add a few more bed and plant some salad greens.

The rain is coming down in buckets now. Sigh. Maybe next week we'll see the sun again.

Pumpkin update

I keep waiting for my garden to become blase or boring, but every day I got out and look and something fascinates me. Today I found that the pumpkin flowers have opened. They've been forming for several days now and this morning they were wide open and the bees were buzzing! I am eagerly awaiting pumpkins.

I'm a tad worried about the carrots though. I don't think I thinned them enough and may not get the abundant supply the greens would lead me to believe. It's hard to pull out perfectly good, healthy looking plants! I want lots of carrots, but I realize that perhaps sometimes less is more :) A good lesson to learn in gardening. Another lesson... better support for the peas!

I also replanted the tomato plant yesterday, from the pot to the garden. The plant has little green tomatoes on it, but it clearly wasn't thriving and I had a big open area where the cukes decided not to grow, so I figured it was worth a shot. The move seems to have helped and the plant is looking better already.

Harvest time!

We are now eating peas, green beans, and purple beans fresh from our garden! I love it. The kids won't eat if I pick them and bring them in, but they will stand by the garden all afternoon and eat. We have green tomatoes and the pumpkin plants are big and strong. I will be so excited if we get pumpkins. I was saying to the boy today that we can make pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and all sorts of yummy pumpkin recipes. He said "let's make pea bread today!!" Hmm... not sure that would be as tasty. I think we've had very good garden weather lately. Warm sunny days with rain every few days. I used left over kiddie pool water to water the garden and tomato plant today, but otherwise haven't had to in quite awhile.



Two other points of interest... I've been reading Let it Rot by Stu Campbell and have lots of good ideas for the compost pile. Unfortunately all of them take at least some $$ and we have very little of it these days, so for now I think we'll keep throwing stuff on the pile and see how it goes. The slow method :) Also, our quince bush (tree) is growing a fruit! We found one when we first bought the house, but there was nothing last year. I think the pruning really helped. We got beautiful flowers on it this year and now a fruit. I wonder if I should prune it every year...

Do you see it? Middle of the picture, slightly towards the top.