Sunday, July 20, 2008

A Reduced Garden Area

My friend Tipper of Blind Pig & the Acorn (a down home country sight that is very enjoyable) showed her big garden of corn and beans so here is mine. My gardening has changed since the wife and I have been on our own. My garden was 30' x 50' when we had 6 at home. I grew everything from beans to watermelon back then. My wife use to can and freeze an awful lot for the winter months. The garden shrank as the children left the nest. The garden is now reduced to a 8' x 12' section of ground which I keep fenced to deter the groundhogs. As I said before, it only slows the groundhogs down a little, this year has been good so far. I guess we will see if it continues. We still do some freezing but we give our excess bounty to our kids and our friends. A small garden can be very productive if you keep after it.

This is the top half of the garden with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. I mulch with grass clippings to try to keep the weeds down. I'm almost keeping up with the weeds. This is the bottom half with zucchini and cherry tomatoes. The grand kids love to eat the cherry tomatoes right of the vine when they ripen. Basically we only have four different things I grow but it does keep an old guy busy.
This is looking up the garden and you can see the zucchini are doing exceptional. The bigger tomatoes are doing well. My youngest grandson helped with the pictures. He enjoys using the camera.
The zucchini are producing, we had one grilled the other day and it was delicious. You can see FG shoes in the shot.
The cherry tomatoes are full size and should be ready within a week.
There are two types of peppers and they should also be ready next week. I love fried peppers and fried zucchini. I know it's not good for you but I also eat them grilled.
This is some good eating and grown organically with no chemicals this year. Rain has been really constant to keep everything going.

21 comments:

Fish Whisperer said...

Nice looking garden. I usually have one but we are about to move so I have skipped doing one this season. Thanks for shecking in on my sites. I appreciate the vote of confidence.
Cheers

dot said...

Looking good! We lost our corn to the deer. We're starting to get a few cucumbers and soon we'll have tomatoes and peppers.

Leora said...

Enjoyed reading about your garden. I spent a lot of time weeding today in mine. My tomatoes are a wee bit smaller than yours, but at least our groundhog hasn't eaten those! He or the deer like to nibble at my parsley, which is slow to grow.

Thanks for verifying my crab.

EG CameraGirl said...

The peppers. zucchinis and tomaotes are coming along very well. I hope you have lots of recipes that use zucchinis!

Anonymous said...

What a beautiful garden you and your wife have!

Unknown said...

Great looking garden, now if I can only make keep my garden from roasting in the rocks.

The Birdlady said...

Oh yum! I haven't grown so much as a tomato plant in years! I relyon the farmers' Markets, but I do miss having tomatoes and cucumbers (and of course, kille zucchini) right outside all summer.

Michele said...

Gosh, the garden is looking fantastic... it's a good thing I'm not your neighbour otherwise I'd be their in the middle of the night raiding it! LOL =)

Anonymous said...

Everything looks great. Your tomatoes are about the shape and size of mine. Mine have never looked better.

We had 5 children and had a larger garden when they were all at home but now my tomato plants are stuck behind two boxwood bushes where they seem to enjoy themselves.

I don't raise anything else.

Stacey Olson said...

Great looking garden. There is nothing like fresh produce you have grown yourself.. thanks FG

smilnsigh said...

Fabulous garden there! Here, we have 3 pots with 3 tomato plants. -grin-

Read a comment by you, over in Pappy's Balderdash and it drew me over here. Your take on his hiku on the Later Age part, rung a {sad} bell with me.

Like I said to him, may we of the older age, stick together. :-))) We need others, who will not refuse to 'see' us anymore.

Sorry if this sounds very depressing. I don't mean to come across that way. I want to keep right on keeping on, for as long as humanly possible! And enjoy every darn minute, I have. :-))))

Miss Mari-Nanci
Smilnsigh
Photos-City-Mine
When Twilight Embraces

kjpweb said...

Well that looks like good bounty coming your way! And self grown stuff tastes extra good! ;)
Cheers, Klaus

raccoonlover1963/Lisa Myers said...

Lovely garden, even though it's small. Thank you for stopping by my blog. My friend Lori was right, blogging is addictive!
Enjoy your day.
Lisa

Pappy said...

Now that looks good. That size garden still feeds a few folks in style. Wish I had some of those vine ripened veggies. Pappy

Jack and Joann said...

Very nice garden. It looks Italian in theme. Does your wife freeze zuchinni for winter baking? And I guess you don't spend all your time in the boat.

smilnsigh said...

Dear Fishing Guy,
I'm back, because I just engaged you in calm discussion... over in Pappy's blog Comments. And I really want to emphasize that I mean calm... calm... calm...

I so agree with what you said about hating to wade into political waters. -sigh- I {mostly} left my blogging at Live Journal, and came to Blogger and made what I call "My Pretty Blog Land," to escape from all political discussion. Because I was so badddddddddddd at it.

I'm always the "frustrated school teacher," who knows what's best and wants to "teach" everyone. -sigh- Which of course, teaches no one.

So I threw up my hands at trying to change minds and hearts. Came to Blogger. Made my 'Smilnsigh' blog, which is 99% just soft, cozy, warm, pretty, non-controversial, pretty pictures, did I say soft? -grinnnnn-

But now and then, the 'ol' war horse' gets to feeling like pawing the ground and etc. Guess Pappy's magnificently written entry, today... did that. -sigh- So, it's all his fault! >,-)

Anyway, I have no, no, no intention of becoming confrontational... in Pappy's blog Comments or in my own. And I wanted to assure you of this.

{I know! You got the message, already!}

Along with being the 'Frustrated Teacher,' I'm a bit melodramatic and blather on too much, too. ,-)

Miss Mari-Nanci
Smilnsigh

Unknown said...

You can see the love and devotion in that little spot. I enjoying growing my own stuff too! It has been a crazy weekend. But I am back. Have a great day!

Anonymous said...

Your garden looks great! My peppers aren't doing well at all this year. I even planted some more to see if maybe the first ones got damaged somehow. I am going to try your weed control method for sure!

Thank you for the Shout Out friend!!

***Fotografia e Luz*** said...

I am amazed with your garden has some tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers are a wonder that with their fish and a wonder, good week for you

Marcos Santos said...

Hey Fish

I very much of her garden.
Eat the food we produce is very good,
mainly by the lack of pesticides.

Congratulations!

Gina said...

You've still got a great garden there FG.. wonderful crops and I'm very envious of the bell pepper (known as capsicum here)..very hard to grow here..you need a hothouse too. :)