Fresh Garden Vegetables
There is nothing better than fresh garden vegetables and this season our garden as been doing great. We’ve been picking both zucchini and summer squash, lots of lettuce, peppers and eggplant plus TONS of Lia’s carrots!
This season Lia started her carrots from seeds in March and was picking them in May! I prepared them so many different ways and even froze a large bag of them,
Lia also started peppers in March from seeds that she dried from our last year’s peppers. She started the seeds in cups inside and then transplanted them into the garden in April. Look how much they’ve grown! Rich had many delicious salads from our lettuce and I even made BLT’s using lettuce instead of bread.
Pallet Garden
We have a small garden in our back yard, it’s about 5′ by 8′ but it produces an abundance delicious vegetables. However after we had everything planted and growing good in May when our neighbor brought over some watermelon, more eggplant, summer squash and tomatoes. I came up with the idea of making a pallet garden instead of digging up more of the yard. Rich covered the edges with plastic, filled in the pallet with garden soil and then we planted our newly acquired vegetables. We never have good luck with tomatoes but were ready to give them a try again. We planted them in large planters so we could move them to where the sun would shine. I wasn’t sure if it would work but everything started growing and growing!
Look how quickly everything took off, we even have a few baby watermelon! It looks like our pallet garden is a success. The watermelon vines are traveling all over the yard!
We have red and purple tomatoes, both zucchini and summer squash and the peppers and eggplant are now ready to pick. I’ve frozen a lot of the squash and peppers and next I’ll do the same with the eggplant.
Since Lia’s carrots have all been picked, last week she planted another row plus a row of beets for a fall crop. Within a week they were sprouting out of the ground! Looking forward to seeing if the beets grow. Our squash season is just about over and Lia wants to plant potatoes. That will be a first for us but since our growing season is longer in the south I’m ready to give them a try! Maybe a winter squash would be good to try also.
There’s nothing better than fresh picked garden vegetables and I love coming up with new recipes for delicious, healthy meals.
Hi Martha, Your garden is flourishing under your and Lia’s touch! So beautiful, there is nothing better than fresh out of the garden! Enjoy!!!
Thank you Cindy, I love gardening and so does Lia. Rich prepares the garden the beginning of the season and does most of the weeding. Lia and I harvest and cook the vegetables!
A pallet garden is a great idea! I used to grow everything in pots in my driveway. The driveway was full of veggies and herbs. And tomato caterpillars didn’t bother the tomatoes when the pots were on the driveway –a big plus.
That’s cool about lining your driveway with the tomato plants Kate. Glad no caterpillars got them. So far we haven’t had any this year either.
Your garden is lovely. How do you keep all the creatures from eating your garden? LOL The creatures in our neighborhood have destroyed all my attempts at planting even a small garden. I think I might try again this year — with a few fall plants in pots. Wish me luck!
We have a sign out there telling the creatures to stay away! LOL We do get a squirrel or two that walks through it but never seems to touch the plants. Maybe because they get their fill on the birdseed that is suppose to be for the birds.
This is so satisfying to observe from afar!
These pallets look really neat.
I have never frozen carrots. Did you put them into the freezer whole or cut into pieces?
How are the tomatoes coming along?
If the carrots are small I leave them whole, otherwise I cut them in about inch long pieces. It’s perfect for soups, stews or just boiled carrots Tamara. The tomatoes are doing good so far, hopefully we’ll have a few big enough to eat in the next week. I’m loving my pallet garden extension!
Makes me hungry! What a good experience for Lia. For your pallets, how deep are they and what would be a requirement for this type of planter? Here in central Texas, I do not have luck with a traditional veggie garden, although I tried for 3 years. Just not enough good soil, or enough water (we are on water restrictions again right now in fact).
Seeing as I had no idea how to start the pallet garden, Rich and I just winged it. The pallet is about 4″ deep so after the sides were covered with plastic, we just stuffed the garden soil in the open areas and pushed it under the slats. So far, so good. I was wondering if it would be deep enough for the roots but it’s working Angie. It’s been very dry here in SC so Rich waters it early morning and if needed in the evening. We have city water but we still conserve on it, just giving the veggies a little drink.
Wow, your family garden is amazing. I did get a couple of peppers and one tomato. We have a bunch of small strawberries, but you can’t eat them.
I love fresh vegetables Brenda! It gets so hot so early, most of the plants are done by the end of July. We’re planting fall crops and see how they do.
[…] got the idea for this post after reading our friend Martha’s post about her garden. I commented at the time that my attempts at gardening were rarely that successful — blame it […]
Gardening can be a challenge at time but it’s fun to watch the crops grow!