Well our little veggie garden is producing little bits of wonderful food for us. It’s been a great experience and the kids love it nearly as much as I do. We’ve planted broccoli, peppers (3 different kinds), beans (3 varieties), tomatoes, spinach, carrots, radishes, onions (green & red) cucumbers, 4 different types of lettuce, basil, rosemary, oregano and mint . Like I was saying, it’s been a great success even if our crop is small.
My big goal this year is to have enough veggies to can and preserve our own bloody mary mix including spicy pickles and picked green beans and peppers. Anyone out there with any pro tips on growing and canning a small bloody mary garden let me know what you know.
Even though I’m happy maintaining this small garden I have big little dreams for next year. I like the idea of expanding and creating a long narrow garden on the side of the house dedicated to leaf lettuce. I’m a sucker for a garden salad and some spicy greens.
Heyyy,
You know I’m going to comment when the topic is the garden. I like the other topics too, this is just my niche. It has taken me 3 years to realize that while I love the square foot gardening method for being organized, low maintenance and easy, among other perks, there are some downfalls too. Like, you only get 12 or so inches of anything that you plant. I have resorted to planting multiple squares of the things we eat the most. We have 12 tomato plants, about 16 pepper plants, 6 cucumber plants and 2 squares of eggplant, broccoli, and most herbs and lettuces, etc. We are only 2 people, so that gives enough volume and variety.. The thing I haven’t mastered is green beans and peas. I’m starting to wonder if there are certain things that don’t fit this gardening approach. as well. There are only so many squares that are ideal for climbing plants—the prime real estate. I might have to find some hidden corner of the yard to plant a long row of green beans to see if I can ever harvest enough in a day to be an abundant portion. The other thing that Mel is wrong about is seed lifespan. He claims you can keep them for several years and I’m finding that my older seeds don’t do so well. Mel has great ideas, but it still takes practice and learning what works. If you can things, I’m going to be so impressed. Other than drying and freezing, preserving has proven to be beyond me thus far. Happy gardening, Scoops. Meg
You are right, things get crowded pretty quickly. If I do expand the garden next year I will have it be specifically for greens and then I can do multiples of some favorites in the bigger garden. Regarding the vines, I am having cucumbers grow up on to our fence, it seems to be working well, but for beans and peas I need to build something for them to climb on.
Thanks for all your wonderful insight!