Our Victory Garden

We're pretty new at gardening. Last year we planted a bunch of tomato plants. I watered them faithfully every day and then couldn't figure out why they were busting out of their tomato cages, but not producing a single tomato! Then I learned that I was over-watering them. We finally had tomatoes in September. We also had about eight varieties of hot peppers. I like my salsa spicy, and that's about it. All of those peppers pretty much went to waste.

Josh put in this darling little fence around the garden.  

Although it's main purpose is to keep the kids (and our cheekies) out, 

it reminds of of something out of Anne of Green Gables.  I love it.

This year we're smarter. Our motto this year was, "Only plant what we'll eat!" Instead of planting radishes (raise your hand if you like radishes), we planted more onions.

Last year we planted a couple rows of these Walla-Walla onions.  

We used every one!  I think they run over 1$ a pound at the grocery store.

  

Instead of planting Habanero peppers, we planted green, red and yellow peppers, perfect for shish kabobs.

My Grandpa had the best corn and would send me home with bags of it in the fall when I would visit.  

It was so crisp and sweet!  There's nothing like fresh corn.  

We're trying out a couple rows.  We're giving potatoes a try, too.

I'm particularly proud of Josh and his hard work in sprouting most of our plants from seed and carefully tending to them organically, which is our new experiment this year!  

These greens are surrounded by these pretty flowers, which serve as "companion plants" and actually attract good bugs that kill the bad bugs who would eat our lettuce.  Beautiful AND Helpful!

My cousin Sarah posted on her blog (it's private) about a garden segment she saw on TV where they gave a tip about "painting your tomatoes".  Since we don't have as many bees as we used to, due to pesticides we use, our plants don't get pollinated.  He said if we go out once a week and touch the yellow blossoms with a dry paintbrush, we'll have a lot more tomatoes.  I'm going to try it!  Thanks, Sarah!  

Ready to be painted little tomato blossoms?

 We're still learning things as we go along, but we're hoping that come fall, we'll have a victory harvest.