End of Summer 2011

This spring/summer was definitely an adventure in gardening. For the first time ever, I planted everything early in the season.  We ended up having record heat and very little rain this spring and early summer, so a lot of my plants either died or didn't produce.  I even lost 2 eggplants...and those were made for Florida!  I did end up with a ton of tomatoes in May and June.  Nothing beats a homegrown tomato!

Heirloom tomato from my son's garden.

We bought an Earthbox for my 5 year old son this spring.  He planted an heirloom tomato seedling, sunflower seed, small strawberry plant, and a ground cherry seed.  The ground cherry had a little too much shade from the tomato...other than that he had a wonderful garden. I was a little jealous of his tomatoes!

My son's Earthbox

Sunflower from the Earthbox

I had quite a bit of success with my rosa bianca eggplant this year.  This was the only eggplant to survive the freeze from the winter.  I've enjoyed cooking with these eggplants this summer. I also had some beautiful nasturtiums and very productive sweet potato vines.

Rosa Bianca Eggplant

Nasturtium

Sweet Potato Vine

Sweet Potatoes (they were delicious)

I had fun with some herbs...but the heat got to them and now the only herbs I have left are some basil and chives.  I'll plant more in a few weeks.

Pineapple Sage

Hyssop

My big flop this year was corn!  I started out with beautiful stalks that produced several ears of corn...then everything just dried up.  I think I may have had more luck if I went for a late summer planting.  We've had quite a bit of rain the last month. 

Corn

After a lot of dry weather, followed by a ton of rain, and a few weeks out of town for vacation...my garden was in bad shape.

Before

I spent a few hours in the garden one day and the hard work paid off. Now my garden is getting ready for fall.  I'll post soon on my plans for the fall garden.

After