green plants in july garden

July’s Garden

See June’s Garden to watch the patch from the beginning. 

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Over the last month our garden has become nearly impossible to navigate through! I can’t imagine what it would have been like had I done it more intensively as I had originally planned. I cringed, sucked it up,  and then did some pretty heavy thinning over the first few weeks and still everything has seemed to take over! The Small Sugar Pumpkins and  Black Zucchini plants especially! The pumpkins are even beginning to take over the zucchini!

And you know what?

I don’t care.

I miss pumpkin so much! I foolishly failed to heed all of the pumpkin warnings last year about a shortage and didn’t stock up and therefore have had none for nearly two long and miserable years. I hope to have my own from now on to carry me through.

It would seem to me that whatever did poorly last year is making up for it this year. We’ve only been harvesting for about 2 or so weeks (I had the exact date recorded on Twitter, but it seems to have eaten all of my posts between May and mid-July.)

Already, my freezer is filling with tons of zucchini that we can’t eat all at once.

Last year, I froze none. We harvested more the first week than I did all season last year!

I’m trying all kinds of new recipes and am planning a follow up post to A Medley of Zucchini Recipes.

I’ve canned 30 quarts of pickles in the last week, experimenting with recipes.

Last year, it was about 10.

Last year, our garden gave us about 17 pounds of peas.

This year, I’ve harvested about 1 1/2 cups!

What a difference there is between shelling peas and snap ones. I think I’m willing to get used to the flavor of snap peas rather than sacrifice all that waste! We’ve had some “pest” issues to deal with there though, which I’ll share more on at another time. Also, I intended to purchase Tall Telephone variety which can be 6 feet tall, and instead due to an apparent brain glitch bought Lincoln, a 2 1/2 foot variety.

I finally gave in and pulled all of the cabbage, so there obviously won’t be anything there. Unless I decide to try for a fall crop.

Sweet potatoes and onions, both abysmal crops last year, are looking rather promising this.

And I dare not even begin to hope for my tomatoes. Last year, I counted my chickens before they hatched and lost nearly all to late blight. This year, rumors of some rust disease are floating about and thankfully, we haven’t been touched by that yet.

I am very much in love with the new mulching system we’re experimenting with!! And why not?  It has taken me from an hour of weeding daily to 45 minutes each Saturday morning! In fact, I was assessing how much work I had cut out for me this morning and decided that I didn’t even need to bother with it! I thought pickle-making should take priority!  (Thank you so much Gina!)

I hope the next month will bring such a positive update as this one has been and that all your gardens  are  flourishing as well!!

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