Our Garden In July

It's time for a garden update. We are still working with vegetables that were planted at the wrong time. They are doing well considering. As I said before we completely halted planting once we figured out we could not follow the advice of the seed packet. I'm so excited to do things right. Our tomatoes that we put in very late are fruiting nicely and are seven feet tall. I have a hubby that loves to fertilize. Here are the pictures:

Here you are looking at summer squash, zucchini, leeks, carrots, a pepper plant that will never fruit because it's buried and green beans in there some place.


You may remember the romaine, green beans, leeks and onions. The voluntary peas grew and then died. Easy come easy go. The romaine bolted. It's very hot this time of year for it but it grew very nicely to maturity. I should have cut the whole head and brought it in. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.


We've gotten some squash. Not nearly what we should. We happen to have no bees out here. A few bumble bees, wild bees, moths and dragon flies do their best to pollinate. We talked to my parents and should have some bees for our upcoming garden. Much of the squash failed. It got all shriveled and squishy before it got more than a couple inches long due to lack of pollination. Be kind to bees.



Our tomatoes are finally here. We have an okay setting with those as well. Again no pollination but we should have plenty of tomatoes soon anyway.




Look at this pretty cucumber. I'm convinced it you want to feel good about gardening cucumbers are where it's at. This was planted when I actually should have been harvesting cucumbers from my last planting and it's still doing really well.


And look it's just such a pretty vine. You may remember I had two cucumber plants planted but Jade picked the one on the left when it was just a few inches tall. She must have known we didn't really need it.


Here are our teenage chickens this month. They are doing well. One of our grown up chickens died today. We have no idea why. Ian is going to change their water at a different time of day. All we can figure is maybe it got overheated. But it died in the nesting box which wouldn't be a good place to go if it was hot. It was the biggest prettiest chicken too. I've noticed we were getting fewer eggs. Perhaps it wasn't well. Poor thing.


Here is what I'm most excited about. These are our new garden plans. They go along with the planting schedule for Yuma(zone 13). We have some fun stuff planned. Ian wants to try to over-winter our tomatoes. Meaning he will protect them from freezing and rather than plant new ones we will keep the same plants. I'm going to plant more green beans. This time pole beans so they climb up the trellis. I'm going to plant a lot more carrots.

Spinach will be a new addition to the garden. I love using it in salads, eating it cooked and I have a bunch of yum recipes for it. I'm not sure four squares will be enough but you can plant it 5 1/2 months of the year here so when I harvest a square I'll replant it. Beets and acorn squash are new. Beets are just for fun. I don't particularly love to eat them but I here they are super easy to grow and if we don't use them I'm sure Ian's dad would like them. The variety of acorn squash we are going to grow is a two-person squash. It only weighs a pound so it's a mini version.

Peas will go in. A whole row this time because the kids love eating them right off the vine. Cucumbers are suppose to be planted in August so I'll plant the left side then if the vine that is already growing dies back or stops fruiting I'll cut it out and plant the right side in September. I'm going to do a whole row of garlic. Most likely too much but it should be fun. It's growing nicely between the tomatoes right now. I'm going to plant a row of romaine lettuce and a row of leaf lettuce.

In the new boxes we will be planting two varieties of pumpkin. One traditional looking pumpkin and one green pumpkin. It's an Australian variety that should be really good for pies and breads. Yum! The the big bed we will also do onions and leeks. A whole row and here that means eight feet of brussels sprouts. Some cabbage and green onions.

The smaller new box was meant to be my herb garden but I forgot I ordered the seeds for this Korean squash they call a Rumbo Pumpkin. It's not actually a pumpkin but it looks like a cinderella pumpkin. It is sweeter than acorn squash and it's just really pretty. So I'll have a little less herbs to make room to grow it.

Those are the plans from now until December. Ian is already prepared to do most of the planting closer to October and for a month or so after. I think he is excited too. Over dinner Teagan asked it we were going to have to keep eating squash. For the record we haven't had it that much. It was a good opportunity for a conversation about why the prophet has asked us to garden. We talked about being prepared and what we would do if there wasn't food in the stores. Teagan actually brought up the point that food could get so expensive we couldn't afford to buy it. I thought that was wise beyond his years. After some gross boy talk about roasting the chickens between he and Ian Teagan ate his squash. Below is my garden plan/planting schedule.