Harvest Time

We just harvested our last broccoli offshoots yesterday so I thought I should put up some pictures of our garden this year. Now I have to figure out what to do with all these green tomatoes??

This was our second year to have a garden in our back yard. We have a small raised bed that is about 6x12ft. While we have really enjoyed having this fun project with the kids, we have also hoped to gain some experience in gardening that will help us once we move to Uganda next year. The land in western Uganda is lush and fertile and should do well for gardening. The variety of local produce is limited in the remote region where we will be living, so being able to grow our own vegetables will really help us maintain a more nutritious diet. The biggest lesson I learned this year: summer squash type plants (and pumpkins) will OVERTAKE your garden space. Wow. I had no idea how wild those plants would get. I was continually trying to cut them back off the tomato plant. I'm really not sure how to do those plants any differently with a small garden. I probably need to read up some on that one.

This was all the squash we got and then our plant developed some sort of mildew on the leaves and died off. Sad. These were pretty yummy though.

We planted a few pumpkin seeds this year in hopes to have pumpkins to carve for Halloween for the kids. Two came in about a month too early and then they broke off the vine. Then, we didn't have any more pumpkins for the rest of the season. So, I decided to make pumpkin puree with the two we did get. :) Here is my favorite recipe for pumpkin bread! I just decrease the sugar a bit.

Our best produce this year were our carrots and green beans. I'm about convinced green beans are the easiest thing you can grow. Each plant just produces so many pods! It is hard to keep up.

My favorite soup that incorporated our entire garden was minestrone. I used our green beans, zucchini, carrots, and basil! This is my favorite recipe with a few personal tweaks.

See that leafy stuff in this picture below?? I sure thought I planted spinach but this was NOT spinach. I still have no idea what it was that I planted or even if the leaves were supposed to be eaten. I didn't eat many because the taste was terrible. Trust me. :)

We like to overgrow our zucchini. Just kidding. This is what your garden yields when a busy life gets in the way. Baseball bat sized zucchini or toddler sized zucchini depending on your reference of choice. It was the only size we grew this year! I kept telling myself I wouldn't let it happen again, but then, POOF, another monster zucchini. I have no idea how they grow so big but apparently after a good rain or two they can just blow up like this. They aren't quite as tasty when they get this size and they have more seeds, so I turned most of them into zucchini puree. My freezer is now stocked full for the next time I made some zucchini bread.

We also attempted herbs for the first time this year. We grew basil and cilantro. The kids enjoyed getting the herbs started off indoors with these starter kits I found in the $1 section at Target.

The kids really loved helping with the garden this year. They planted all the seeds and were eager to watch things grow. People have always told me kids are more likely to eat stuff when they are involved in the prepping/cooking process. Well, the same is true for gardening! By the end of summer my kids were just picking broccoli straight off the plant and munching on it. Give it a try!