How our garden grows (Year 2)

If you live in New England, as we do, the snow is waste deep and your raised beds just look like ab muscles on an otherwise smooth expanse of white. I consider myself a real Mainer as I truly appreciate each of the seasons and never wish them to be over before mother nature is ready for them to be. Yes, even winter. I don't get cabin fever in winter because I don't stay "in the cabin", even with two small children we get outside and snowshoe and ice skate. And we aren't inside, I have so many interesting things to do I cannot fathom feeling board. Plus, what is better than warming up with a cup of coffee by the wood-stove after a snowy adventure? Anyways, I digress. My point is that even though I love winter so much and take small pride in not wishing it over, looking over photos of our garden last year made me sigh. I can barely even fathom a time when my boys were outside in shorts and diapers, all of us barefoot, poking around in the garden and digging our hands into the warm earth. And yet, spring is just around the corner and we will be at that point again.

Looking back at photos from last summer also reminded me that I never wrote about our second year garden! So before I start ordering seeds for the spring, I am taking a moment to share what we planted last year and how things went.

Last year I used a great program called The Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner. It was free for a month, then you can pay a small annual fee to continue using it...I haven't decided whether I will do it again this year or not. It was fun to map everything out virtually though. Here was my plan for the raised beds:

I started everything from seeds again; some indoors and others pressed into little mounds of soil on the lasagna style raised beds.

Somethings, like the broccoli, did not transplant well into the garden and had to be resown with fresh seed. But by mid season, everything was lush and green and productive.

Instead of shelled peas, like we planted last year around our teepee (http://biophilliachomeowner.blogspot.com/2013/07/pea-teepee.html), we planted sugar snap peas which grow 6-8 feed tall. Not only was the teepee more lush and as I imagined it would look when I originally built it, but the peas were delicious and fun for my toddler to go out and pick and snack on all day.

I planted dragon's langerie for beans this year, admittedly because I loved the name and thought they looked really cool. I thought they were delicious, but they were quite mild and the rest of my family weren't overly fond of them. So they probably won't be making an appearance again this year.

The tomatoes were quite late in coming this year, but when they were finally ripe enough to pick they were plentiful and delicious. We especially love the little sungold tomatoes which are sweet and fun to pop into your mouth as your passing by.

I got a kale mix this time around, but that didn't work out so well. At first some critter was eating them all up. But they came back and there was plenty to eat. The only problem was, they were all kind of tough and not the best tasting so we didn't enjoy it as much as we had in the previous year. I'm probably going to go back to the curly green kale or something comprable this year.

The pumpkins grew well and we had quite a few that we were able to make into pies and pumpkin muffins in the fall.

The butternut squash on the other hand did not do so well. We ended up with one teeny one that I kept on the vine too long and was unedible after some frost damaged it.

 The other plant that didn't do great were the strawberries. Not of their own accord though. Being second year plants now, we were all so very excited to be able to pick all the berries and eat them (last year we couldn't let them fruit so the plants would be well established). They grew beautifully and there was bountiful green berries. You could hardly look at the bed without your mouth watering.

However, we were not the only ones who thought the berries looked delicious, and only ONE SINGLE berry made it to becoming red. My two year old and I split it. This year we will have to cover the berries with netting or something. I WILL have those yummy berries.

We had many a bountiful harvest all summer long and well into autumn. We even noticed a huge difference in our grocery bill, which makes it especially worth it. I'm so glad that we are able to grow our own food and teach our children about gardening and eating fresh foods.