Garden Goodness

I can't believe that I really LOVE gardening. Growing up we always had a summer vegetable garden at my grandma Hazel's in Bear Lake. I really liked uprooting the carrots and washing them off and eating fresh peas....but at the time none of that hard work seemed worth it. Surprisingly I was stoked when we finally had some little triangles of land to grow veggies on. Last year was our first year and we had some super tomatoes....but nothing else really worked out. This year it's kind of the same...but we have MORE tomatoes and MORE veggies that didn't work out.

Being gone for a whole month of vegetable garden season is a little tough, but thanks to great neighbors and friends we're coming in with a decent harvest.....mostly tomatoes....and I've learned a lot.

Here are some fruits of my labors....and man has it been laborious. Eating those juicy tomatoes just minutes from the vine makes all that back breaking weeding and work worth it. And there is nothing like being able to come home from a 5 week vacation to fresh veggies without a trip to the store. I just get such a weird thrill from providing parts of meals from things that I've produced (with a ton of help from neighbors). I feel like a real pioneer woman....in my own tiny way, and I like it.

We had a great herb garden in window boxes surrounding the deck. This might be my very favorite part.....nothing like not having to rush to the store last minute for some fresh basil.

Hazel planted carrots from seed....they're still way too small and bitter to eat....but they're growing and we're hopeful.

We went down to the Marshfield fair and their blue ribbon zucchinis were about this size. Turns out the only thing they're good for this big is baking....so we had zucch bread, zucch cookies, zucch brownies and even tried zucchini feta cakes....they were delicious.

Our garden makes me hate our quite trashy asphault back yard a little less.

We even got one little sugar pumpkin....a little too early for Halloween.

Every day I need to go and harvest more of those darn tomatoes and do something with them....so if you live local and want some really yummy tomatoes....please stop by. If you're not local and you have some good ideas of what to do with this plenty.....leave me a comment.
I need to come back to this post in March and remember that these awesome, outside, garden, bbq months where the kids can be entertained for hours (without getting anything but themselves dirty or messy) are just around the corner.