Gardening 2016: Update 5

The other 2016 updates


Garden Update #1

Update 2
Update 3

Update 4

And this pic was from just about a month ago, when I meant to do another garden update:

 And this was August 18th

 Certainly the weeds have one up on me this year. That's what happens with two weeks away. I just give up.  I could talk about the annoying cucumber beetle, squash bugs, potato bugs or the Mexican bean beetle. Truth is, I'm great about planting and growing and have a lot to learn about pest management. 

On the bright side? I timed my pole beans and my sunflowers perfectly, so my pole beans really did climb my sunflowers (I started the sunflowers 5 weeks earlier than the beans). 255 pounds of produce have been brought in. We've had potatoes once and have a ton more to dig. We've had corn once and more are coming. There's some produce in our freezer now.  There's also a whole lot of tomatoes. Yum.

 Each and every meal is almost all garden fresh.  Certainly time intensive, but so good.

 I also planted a lot more flowers than years past. Certainly the perennials are abundant here, but it's been nice having the zinnias, glads, dahlias, buckwheat, cosmos, marigolds and sunflowers add that pop of color to the garden. You bet that I've been bringing in bouquets too.

 I wonder if my kids someday will say, "My mom used to always have flowers on the table." I love bringing that color in.