Harvest Monday 6/24/13

Our house is finally finished and we moved most of our stuff this weekend!  It is very exciting to actually be living here and have some time to take care of the new garden.  It has been neglected, but I'm still glad I took the time to get some things planted this spring.  I just couldn't imagine not growing veggies this summer.

Today I spent unpacking box after box.  I always think I don't have that much stuff.. until I move!  I took a break to check out the garden and take the pup for a walk.  This is my first harvest Monday from the new garden: turnips.  With all the chaos of moving and trying to maintain two gardens, the weighing and keeping track of harvests has fallen to wayside and that would require knowing which box my scale is hiding in!

Roasted turnips will be the first thing I cook in my new kitchen!  Hopefully this new kitchen will cook lots and lots of veggies from the garden over the years.

The only other harvest I have, I did not grow.  During our walk through the woods and down the road I came across some ripe blackberries. Yum!!

That's all the harvests coming from my garden this week, to see what others are harvesting check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.

The New Garden

I couldn't handle the thought of not having a garden this summer, so the plan was to put in a low maintenance garden.  Silly me, how many gardens are really low maintenance?  The plan was to till up some beds and leave the grass in between and wide enough to mow.

Unfortunately grass doesn't like to stay where you want it.  I didn't have a lot of time for weeding since the new place was 40 minutes from the old place.  My main goal was to get things planted.  I am very excited to have a garden that actually gets sun!  I'm hoping that will result in more harvests and quicker harvests.

The other problem was the lack of water access.  I had to haul water back and forth from the pond, which was not fun.  Luckily we had a really wet spring, so I got away with minimal watering.

Despite the challenges, I do have plants growing.  I'm not counting on a fabulous harvest this year, so far I've had the potatoes decimated by potato beetles, the deer did some bean and pepper browsing, and then half the garden was immersed in what looked like cement for several days after the well was drilled.   I also did absolutely nothing to improve the soil except trying to remove lots and lots of rocks.  

We've even have had our first harvest:

Hopefully there will be many more veggies to come.  (However, this was the only pea harvest because I went to try to remove a rock that was in the soil near the peas.  The rock turned out to be a boulder that required the tractor to get out.  Unfortunately the pea plants didn't survive the boulder extraction!)

Farewell to a Loved Garden

Tomorrow is the big day.. we finally close on our new house!  I love our new place and the land.  It is such a quiet and peaceful place, plus the potential for growing things seems unlimited on 12 acres.

But there is the bittersweet goodbye to my garden.  I've always been the type to get attached and I am horrible at goodbyes.  I suppose only a gardener would understand the labor and love that went into growing and nurturing plants, to stroll through the garden and have a history and story to tell about every plant.  The ones I grew from seeds, the ones I got from the clearance (aka. verge of death) section at the nursery and now have to battle to keep them from taking over the yard, the ones I hand picked pests off, and all the ones that make me smile.

Of course there will be more plants and stories.  I do love the idea of leaving a trail of gardens and flowers behind whenever I leave.  The gardener's legacy.. making the world a more beautiful place one yard at a time!