Garden Update

Rain, rain, go away...not sure if you should come back anytime soon.  Here I am complaining about the weather again, I swear that's not all I do.  However, lately I am feeling a bit like I need to build an ark before we all float away!  On a positive note, though I've barely had to water anything in my yard and despite the uninvited mushrooms growing in my garden, things are going pretty well.  We've just recently begun to enjoy some of the first few fruits of our labor in the garden including some fresh herbs like basil and sage, some spinach and arugula for salads and even a pretty good size zucchini.  Before providing an update on what our garden is currently looking like, I thought I'd go back a bit and show it from the beginning since we made some pretty big changes this year.

 We started by mapping out the larger perimeter of the garden space.  Inside, you can see the outline of our old garden beds, which look pretty puny.

Then we broke out the serious equipment to get started.  Thanks to my wonderful husband for doing all of the hard work!

Our dog, Abbey was clearly working hard too.  She was supervising, I guess.

Here are my pepper, tomato, and eggplant seedlings catching some sun outside.

 Meanwhile, I had started some seeds indoors.  Some were successful while others were not, but those that weren't I was able to replace with plants from the farmer's market.

Spinach sprouts

 Other plants, we sowed directly in the ground when it was warm enough including the lettuce, arugula, spinach, beans and peas.

 

Finally time to start gathering some greens.  Here is a fresh salad we enjoyed with a mix of spinach, arugula and basil.  Yum!

Our first zucchini from the garden we used in some homemade pasta sauce combined with fresh yellow peppers.

A little friend that came to visit...and surprisingly didn't eat anything

Basil and romaine lettuce

Pole beans climbing a bean teepee.  Space saving and fun for Addison to hide in!

Grape tomatoes

Peas!

Another baby zucchini

Carrots in a pot

We're looking forward to continuing to eat just about as local as we can get from our garden throughout the summer.  Hopefully your garden is growing well too (if not overwatered!) and if you haven't started one yet, you may still have a little time to pick up some plants at your local farmer's market so you can enjoy fresh food in your own backyard!  If not, it's never too early to begin planning for next year.  Just take a look at the space you have and take note of what kind of sun your yard gets and think about what you and your family like to eat often.  Write everything down and maybe even draw a picture of how you want your garden to look and you'll be prepared to get planting as soon as the ground is ready.  Share some pictures of your garden here or 'like' "KJ's Green Kitchen" on Facebook and post a picture on our wall.