Vegetable Garden Explosion

For years we have said that we needed to do a vegetable garden, yet year after year passed with no garden. Finally, this year we got it together with the help of hubby's father, and it has been so much fun. We couldn't pick just a few things, so we ended up with a smorgasbord of veggies & fruits: crooked-neck squash, pickling cucumbers, eggplant, broccoli, zucchini squash, yellow corn, silver queen corn (white), clemson spineless okra, burgandy okra, various tomatoes, various bell peppers, sweet banana peppers, green beans, goose peas (a type of field-peas), sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, and mammoth sunflowers.

Since we had to prepare an area from scratch and the spring weather was quite uncooperative here, we got a late start on planting, but I think it has caught up without any problem.... :-)



JUNE 22



JULY 11



Today, JULY 24



It's the mammoth zucchini squash!!

I can't believe how fast it has grown, and look what happens when you get side-tracked and don't check the garden for two days! 

We have actually already harvested a lot for canning--a ton of pickling cucumbers, sweet banana peppers, and some crook-necked squash. So far, we've pickled a jar of peppers and about 6 jars of cucumbers. Tomorrow we hope to can some squash relish ("chow chow", here in the South) which is a necessity for the goose peas that will be coming in soon!



This afternoon I collected a variety of veggies, and we had our first taste of veggies from our garden....delicious fresh green beans for dinner. Even my picky eaters raved about how good they were...YEA!