Resolution: Garden

Happily, my hopes of having a garden this year are coming true.  When I posted about my plans and resolutions, I thought the garden was going to be a pipe-dream, but thankfully I was wrong.

I'll give you a short but happy little tour...

We planted red-skinned potatoes.  (These were planted chunks of potatoes I bought from the store that started to sprout!)  One afternoon in May Clara helped me harvest them.

Of course she tried eating them right away.

Potatoes are such a low-maintenance, high reward crop.  Highly recommended.

"Look at this one!"

For the first time ever, we planted corn.  Clara LOVES corn.  Pat planted a few varieties.  One was Gram's faithful hybrid: G90.  The others were heirloom varieties.

 

 

The two ears Clara's holding are the "Yellow Dent" heirloom variety.  They were the tallest plants too.

When it was time to harvest, (end of May/early June) the G90 tasted 10x better hands down.  Disappointing to me to say the least, as I was really excited about my heirlooms.  The heirloom varieties will keep you alive, but that's about all.  We will be planting G90 next year for sure.

I started four different kinds of heirloom tomatoes from seed.  Below is a picture of one of the tomatoes.  We have them growing on a vertical metal trellis instead of a cage.  (I read an article in organic gardening mag that recommended doing it this way, so we're giving it a try.) 

All of the heirlooms have their own little problems, although the cherry variety is probably the least problem-prone.  (Clara picking the "tiny ones!" below.)

 

She always tries to be good helper!

 

 

 

I also have a row of Zinnias.  These are fun because there is nothing more luxurious than cut flowers in your home. Since they're not in front of the house, I don't care if I cut them all off and bring them in the house!  I plan on planting more summertime flowers as part of the garden next year too.  I'm more and more interested in flower arranging it seems.

Grocery shopping during the summer is really strange.  I almost completely bypass the veggies.  I don't need to buy any!  People must think my family lives on bread, crackers, and cereal though!  Ha, ha!

There's beans and peppers and eggplant to show you too, but I guess that's a post for another day...