Tired of the Garden

Yesterday the kids and I went out and cleaned up a bunch of the garden.  I can't believe that it is October and stuff is still growing!  I really haven't gotten a lot out of the garden this year, except yellow squash and swiss chard.  Still, my tomato plants were huge and filled with tons of green tomatoes.  Well, we picked all the tomatoes, green or red or in between.  Then, we pulled up the plants.  Green tomatoes will ripen indoors so that is what I'm hoping for with all of them.  I canned some salsa yesterday and today I'm planning on doing some stewed tomatoes.  We also pulled up all of our pepper plants.  I didn't have many peppers on them, and I only got a few off of them this summer, but at least it was something.  Finally, we pulled up the watermelon, cantaloupe, and cucumber plants.  We actually had some pretty good watermelons ready.  They were just little ice box size ones, but it's the first time we've gotten watermelon here.  The kids were troupers helping me pick produce, then taking the plants to either the compost pile or the chicken run.  We left the carrots and swiss chard out there because they haven't really been affected by this colder weather. 

I have to say, this is the first year that I've actually cleaned out the beds before the frost killed them all, or before the snow melted the next spring for that matter.  It felt good to get outside and work with the kids.  It also felt good to know that I was done with watering tomatoes and peppers.  Yes, I will still have to do something with all the green tomatoes when they ripen, but they are inside now, not out.

So this year's garden did much better than last.  It's amazing what happens when you water the plants on a semi-regular basis.  I have high hopes that next years garden will be even more amazing.  I've loved having Robert around more in the summer.  Some thoughts I have about my garden, I really want to get some hoops or something so that I can put tomatoes and peppers out earlier.  Now that my trellis for the cucumbers is gone to make a gate I need a new trellis.  I didn't not care for the San Marzano variety of roma tomatoes.  I think I want a different variety next year.  I also want to get red cherry tomatoes instead of yellow pear ones.  If I buy my herbs from a grower I need to purchase them earlier in the year, and get lots of dill.  Onions do not grow good in our clay soil, but they grow great in our raised beds!  The potatoes did really good growing in the hay, keep that idea.  Our corn did very poorly, not sure why.  I enjoyed the swiss chard, but most of my family were not too keen on it.  I want to try kale next year.  4 yellow squash plants are a lot for our family, but you can use yellow squash in just about anything you would use zucchini in.  I used it in bread and jam this year and it turned out delicious.  This year we also put bark around our raised beds.  It will be interesting to see how that changes things next year.  Will it keep the weeds down?  I sure hope so.  If there are less weeds around the beds, will there be fewer weeds in the beds?  I guess we will see.  I also hope that we can get more of the wall around the garden finished for next year.