Garden Update

I have been busy this fall, so I just had to let the garden tend to itself. Some veggies are doing very well, some are not. Before I start on how the garden is doing, I want to show you my newest plant purchase.

This is a vanilla plant. When it is about 3 or 4 feet tall, it should flower. As you can see, this lives in my bathroom. I am trying to take advantage of all the moisture there. In the summer, it will go outside. I have needed a new plant for a while because when Molly was younger she destroyed my last one. One of the side benefits of having a puppy! I tried to regrow it from some of the leftover pieces but none of them really took off and they never flowered (the plant was quite old anyway.) My husband and I went to Miami a few weeks ago to visit relatives and bought it.  While this should help on my journey to self-sufficiency, I don't expect that I can completely eliminate my need to purchase vanilla beans. I just won't have to buy as many as I do now. (I go heavy on the vanilla when I cook.) In addition to being used in the production of vanilla flavoring, on occasion they will be used to make vanilla bean ice cream.

The peas are doing very well. I planted two varieties, one bush and one pole. Both are English peas.

My apologies about the picture! I took it very early this morning and I didn't realize that it had shadows until I posted it.

The onions are doing great too although you can barely see them in the picture. What you can see very well are the weeds!

I have a lot of weed issues in the onions! Going to have to fix that soon! The weeds will steal all the nutrients out of the soil. I have mixed results from the garlic so far. Some that I purchase locally, sprouted quickly. The ones that were saved from my crop last June, are sporadic. Here is a picture of some of the local ones.

Oops! Another bad picture. All you can see is one garlic plant! You can also see that I am still the proud owner of a rock. I really don't know what to do with it! It seems quite happy sitting in the yard, but I am getting tired of looking at it! 

Strawberries are producing well.

What I really like about everbearing strawberries is you get two crops of very large strawberries in the spring and fall and then smaller ones during the hot summer months. They truly produce from spring until very late in fall!

Broccoli is up and growing too!

The carrots are not. I planted two varieties, one from my saved seeds that I gathered this summer and the other I purchased. Both are nantes varieties. I think next year I am going to move away from the nantes family. I know they are popular and a lot of different varieties are sold, but I have a hard time getting them to germinate. Right now, I need the carrots to come up because we are out of carrots! I don't store many cans of dehydrated carrots because we always have fresh ones to eat from the garden. We will just have to do without until I can get a crop to grow!

My pepper plants just won't die! They are still making peppers and I am still dehydrating them. I am up to 300 now, and I have about 30 more waiting to be chopped up and dried. This is the only crop from the summer I have left.

Parsley is doing very well too. Time to harvest some more!

Tomorrow I am making some Christmas soap so the weeds & parsley will have to wait until next week!