Summer's Harvest

Our vegetable garden didn't get much of a harvest this year. The cards were really stacked against it so I don't feel too bad. Mostly I just wanted Charlotte to enjoy the planting seeds and watching them grow experience. Above is a photo of some carrots I got out, baby pumpkins we planted, and peas growing. We harvested precisely zero peas to eat from our garden this year because we were gone for family vacation right during harvest time. We ended up with maybe half a cup of seed peas. I figure the growing season is long enough here that I can hopefully get a fall crop in. Charlotte and I planted the peas in the egg carton a while back and they're almost ready to move out into the garden. You can completely tell which spots I put peas in and which ones Charlotte was in charge of. Some of the holes have a single plant growing out of them and others have about seven. She's loving it.

As for our other crops, the bell pepper plant was completely thrashed when some burglars came in our backyard and stole our lawn mower. Dan was so mad I was getting nervous. He just fumed around the house muttering "stupid" and "idiot" and "crap." Needless to say the rest of us gave him a wide berth. What I was mad about was that our bell pepper plant, the only one that grew from the huge amounts of seeds we planted, our miracle plant, was finally showing some promise of a harvest. Then they took the mower right over the top of it! Not only were we burgled (which I prefer over robbed, it sounds so much better right?) but we were also vandalized!

The asparagus is too young to have a harvest. They are really cute little guys though. Dan wants to give up on them and pull them up, but I say give them a little time. It's just hard to dig up the stinking trumpet vine volunteers around them. Tip for the future: NEVER PLANT TRUMPET VINE!

The baby pumpkins had a decent harvest, but what do you do with baby pumpkins other than paint them for Halloween? Charlotte wanted to plant them so we let her, but we wont be repeating that next year.

The carrots are our star crop this year. They are short and fat, but so satisfying to pull up and clean off and cook and serve to my family. I have noticed that we're all eating more carrots lately. Perhaps that's because we know if we don't eat them now, we'll just have to eat them later. While making soup for dinner tonight Charlotte actually casually picked up one of the carrots I had peeled and ate it. The whole thing. All by herself. It was awesome.