My New Twin Garden Helpers

I've been working on a little side project for the last 9 months...Garden time has been dramatically reduced this year for two very important reasons: my new babies!

In April I delivered identical twin boys, Nick and Tyler. They are loud and messy and completely adorable. I haven't done much in the garden this year--no seed planting, no weeding, no trimming back the ivy. I haven't even bought vegetable transplants.  However, I did find time last weekend to plant two new rhododendron shrubs. One of these days I might find time to photograph them instead of the boys. In the far-off future I'm looking forward to sharing my gardening hobby with the boys and growing vegetables with them. Until then I'll enjoy looking at everyone else's gardens.

Happy 2014 Gardening!

Summer Vegetable Garden Recap

Hello blog! It's been a while.

We had a busy summer around here, with short trips, visitors, weddings to attend, and work. The new job is still going well, although I'm currently working without pay because of the government shutdown. I wish I had insight as to when this will end, but we don't know anything. We just hope that we'll get back pay since we've been deemed "essential employees" and are required to work now. Just another reason to appreciate my low-maintenance vegetable garden and the ability to have some fresh veggies without having to buy them at the store! The plan worked like a charm and has been manageable with our limited time at home.

My container garden this year consisted of tomatoes, peppers, and four tomatillo plants. We had a relatively mild summer in the DC area--plenty of rain and not too many scorching hot days. It seemed like ideal conditions for the veggies. Bugs didn't seem to be as big of a problem this year as in previous years. We didn't grow cucumbers or any summer squash, so cucumber beetles, squash bugs, and squash vine borers weren't an issue. We had aphids and spider mites, but were able to control them somewhat by spraying the underside of the leaves with the hose on the high-pressure setting. We still have spider mites on some tomato plants, but it hasn't been enough to affect the yield too much.

I haven't been great at keeping track of how many pounds of tomatoes we have harvested, but I haven't bought tomatoes in about 6 weeks. This past week has brought back summer-like temperatures in October, and I think the plants are enjoying the surprise weather. The tomatillos have just starting ripening in the past week or so. You can tell they're ripe when the husk starts drying out and clings to the fruit. I'm looking forward to all the green salsa I'll be making once I harvest enough of them.

We just pulled these beautiful yellow bell peppers yesterday.

We've harvested more jalapenos, serranos, and habaneros than we can eat, so we've given some away. All of the hot peppers have had a lot of heat, more than in other years. I wonder if the milder temperatures and plenty of rain helped?

 

Our bell pepper harvest has been amazing. We're growing red, yellow, and orange bell peppers (all are green before they turn ripe) and use them in everything from soups to sauces to soffritos. 

And the sizes have been great, too. Several of them have been big enough to fit and my hand and perfect for stuffing.

 

We harvested this bowl of bell peppers mid-September and it yielded four pounds! 

I hope you and your garden had a wonderful summer. How's your fall garden looking?

The Low Maintenance Garden

I wasn't able to start many seeds this year for my edible garden, so we bought a few transplants instead.  This year's low maintenance garden consists of only 15 plants, about half the number I usually have.

Instead of planting squash, cucumber, beans, and other vegetables, I decided to keep it simple and focus on just two items for my kitchen garden this summer: tomatoes and peppers.
We bought both sweet and hot peppers, including a jalapeno plant because we have to have some hot peppers in the garden. So far the plants and pests have been manageable. There are even a few blushing Super Fantastic tomatoes right now.

I did start a few seeds, including two habaneros and two tomatillo plants, which are also doing really well.  Between the tomatoes, tomatillos, jalapenos, and habaneros, I expect to have a nice salsa garden this year. If only I could grow cilantro...

And here's a nice surprise--two potato plants from my failed crop last year made an appearance.  Last year potato beetles decimated the potatoes I had started from seed. I was going to turn this into an onion patch, and these two potato plants surprised me by sprouting this spring.  I've left them alone just to see what happens. Wouldn't it be nice to get some potatoes this year?

How is your summer edible garden doing?