Ahhhh, Summer! I can't believe it's June already. We are half done with 2008! I sometimes feel I take for granted the first half of the year and hope it rushes by for the sake of warm weather. I could almost consider it selfish as God gave me so much time and yet I wish half of the year away in order to have some warm summer months. Let's make them worth it, mmkay?

 

   I mentioned in the previous blog that  I had been working on a few raised garden beds. Lo' and behold, we have completed them, dirt, plants and all, ready for the rain and shine! This year our crop so far consists of Tomatoes (four varieties), Bell Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Broccoli, Spinach, a variety of Lettuce, Radishes Basil and plenty of assorted herbs!

 

   We have already had a few casualties so far. A few of our tomato plants, grown from the seed, fried the first day we planted them and got progressively worse throughout the first week. We picked out the dead / near dead and planted some store-boughts in their place. We managed to save four out of the eight, however. I guess we were supposed to "warm them up" to the outdoors as they were used to the cushy indoor life. The same thing happened to our Egg Plants... It's a definite, "Life and Learn" experience. I've never had luck starting plants indoors, so if we got four of them to stick around, that's a great accomplishment for me.

 

   I'm also thinking we may have another crop of pears this year. I thought the tree was biannual, but I've seen numerous tiny pears behind the flowers already. Time will tell.

 

 

   I am hoping to have periodic updates throughout the season of how things are progressing, if not for my own knowlege and understanding of my garden, so I will be more prepared next year!

   Ahhhh, It's hit me, I can't wait for spring! Don't get me wrong, winter is great and I enjoy the snow and the cold quite a bit (alright, this negative zero stuff could go away.) Sledding is a blast, the trees are beautiful when frosted over, I even gave ice skating a try, it was wonderful and I'm planning on doing a bit more of it this year. I'm also wanting to give snowboarding another shot. As charming as winter is, however, it does not halt my desire to maintain my garden. I'm going to safely say that having a garden is my favourite part of our warm weather seasons. What the hey, you give it care and it turns around and gives you food! Excellent!

 

   We are going to build onto our operation this year, I believe. As of right now, we have a couple pots and one raised garden bed. We were able to produce incredible amounts of food from this single 4x8 box. Pounds each of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and lettuce. This year, I would like to make at least two more garden beds and perhaps a sort of raised herb shelf thing which will hold pots of herbs. It should be pretty fancy. We made just a little bit of basil pesto this year and would like to see that turn into jars.

 

   Also, I would really like to try and preserve a lot more food this year. Last year I canned about fourteen jars of pickles, and despite having a bounty of pears, I failed to do anything with them due to landscaping, road trip and other things. This year, I would like to can more pickles, relish, tomatoes, peppers, salsa and jams for starters, freeze a good amount of spinach and try my hand at drying a few things while I'm at it. I'd like to see Jacinda and I stocked up for winter.

 

   As of right now, I believe we will support the basics in our garden, tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce, spinach and cucumbers along with basil, oregano, chamomile and other herbs. If you have any suggestions as to what we should plant, no matter how much fun, practical, difficult or tasty it is, I would love to hear from you!