Garden 2011

Just a few pictures to show the bounty of our garden this year.

I didn't plant anything until June 3, after the irrigation system went in and just as the wet spring was easing into summer.

 But this year was relatively mild as Utah summers go, so the veggies loved to grow!

By September, we had lots of onions, hot peppers, Roma and beef-eater tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini.  The only thing that didn't do well were the bell peppers, but we had enough of them too.

The four tomato plants were especially bountiful.  Many a basketful did I harvest.

 So many that I canned 15 pints...

... and got to use my fancy potfiller to do it.

 I also dried several bags of "sun dried" tomatoes and habanero peppers in the dehydrator.  We bought the smallest chest freezer imaginable and I've put up bags of shredded zucchini, crushed tomatoes, jalepeno peppers, habanero peppers that will knock your socks off, whole tomatoes, and raw tomatoes.

The Armenian cucumber was out of control.  I made two big batches of pickles, one spicy and one sort of curry flavored.  The spicy ones are the best.

I made strawberry-rhubarb jam that turned out pretty well.

I harvested about 40 onions, or enough to last us until next year I think.

Last week (October 26) we had our first killing frost. Later than usual, but it still found me unprepared. I was out that night at 10 PM wearing my head lamp and harvesting 30 pounds of green tomatoes and the last of the green and hot peppers.

I've made two green tomato pies (tastes like apple, with a bit of a tang) and this week I hope to make green tomato salsa.

As for Drew, he has done mostly "garden tasting" so far, but he has a green thumb that is just itching to get dirty in his own section of the garden next year.