2024 Garden

Last year was the first year we planted a garden in almost 6 years (I believe). We were so late getting seeds started and ended up having to buy a ton of plants just to have something for the year. We also no longer had an established garden area, so that was a whole task in and of itself other than just making sure we had enough plants for what we were wanting. We spread manure from this previously being a pasture area, Robert then rough tilled that in and then re-tilled making the rows we needed for planting.

We ended up with a 70 foot by 48 foot garden (plant-able footage area roughly). We have 2 large rectangular sections with a 6 foot woodchipped walk path down the center longways. We built a trellis at one end that connected the two large rectangles of planting area, using a couple cattle panels and studded t-posts that we utilize for our vine crops. (Image below is NOT ours, but the general idea of what we did in our garden.)

We started with a rough draft of what plants we wanted, how much of each plant, and where they were going to go. Once we got the seeds, and plants that we needed we were able to get things put in. (If the pictures are readable, each square represents 2 foot.) (Image Below)

After getting everything in, we had to make some adjustments to our drafted plan. This is mainly for accurate record of what was where, to help teach people how to read the diagrams created, and learning to ID plants we might not be familiar with. (Imagine Below)

With everything planted and the final copy of the layout it was time to let nature and God do their thing. We planted the same amount of regular potatoes that we normally did and we got almost 300 pounds of potatoes, which was definitely a record for us. (We did some experimenting with those and will be recorded in another blog).

We did not get any broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, beets, carrots, or eggplants. Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and lettuce we had grown successfully in the past, it just was not in the cards for this years garden. We also were not weeding the garden as we should have, which could have been a huge contributor to any of these items not being successful. I personally was very pregnant and did not tolerate the heat well which made it hard for me to contribute like I needed to.

The final bump picture I got before having my boy and picking corn for the day!

My face after picking corn. Everything I did was exhausting, but totally worth it!

We started getting a huge harvest of green beans (bush and pole) mid to

late July, the kids loved helping with picking the items from the garden and processing them down. We did can some green beans, a good portion we did throw in the crock pot with some bacon, onions, potatoes, garlic, and of course butter, the best combination!

Mid to end of August I was able to harvest the sweet corn, we got the best crop we ever had and it was so good!, we kept some on the cob, but the rest we cut off and canned into jars as well! (We do not recall the numbers we got, we will get a good blog this year on each item from the garden and what we get from it. That all being said here is a picture of Miss Alaska so proud of her green bean harvest. Also pictured is Alaska and Jaxson showing off how we hauled our produce from the garden to the house, this time specifically was the corn!

The tomatoes were ridiculous to say the least, in the very best (and somewhat worst) way possible. Other than not getting the vines clipped to the poles we had staked next to the plant in time and it looked like a jungle patch, they were just loaded with tomatoes. We picked them almost every day and we still could not keep up with them, after I was not longer able to help, they kind of got left, which was honestly a good and a bad thing. Good because we already had a freezer full of tomatoes with nowhere else for them to go, and bad because we easily could have had double the amount of tomatoes. Due to the heat in the summer time, we try not to can during this time of year, so when lur tomatoes are ripe, we wash them, make sure the stem is removed, and make an "X" in the bottom of the tomato with a knife. We then put them in gallon baggies and place in the freezer to can at a later time, usually in the winter when it is cooler and we have a bit more down time in other aspects of life. I do not have any pictures of the tomato harvest (at this time at least), and if I have canning pictures I will post those in a different post on tat process!

That pretty much wraps up the bulk of our 2024 garden, hoping to catch up 2024 things, so that I can keep up with current and future posts, until next time, be blessed.