Category: Gardening 2024

Those of you that follow this blog may remember last fall when we had harvested most of the produce in the garden. We had a few tomatoes left to pick (in the last section) and the carrots were still in the ground (middle section). We had begun trimming the lavender in the first section.

By September, the only plants left were the carrots. We planned to leave them in the ground as long as possible.

In late October, we dug up all the carrots. They were beautiful!

The extra little carrots with tops were rinsed off and given to a friend’s pet rabbits.

When the carrots were dry, we put them into gallon zip bags without closing them and put them in a large insulated bag. This sat in the garage for months and when we wanted carrots, I could just grab a few for dinner or salads.

During the cold freeze a few weeks ago, the garage got below freezing for several days so I set the bag of carrots in the kitchen. When it warmed up, I moved the bag back to the garage…sort of a traveling “root cellar.”

Yesterday, we wanted cooked carrots for dinner. I grabbed a bag of carrots out of the insulated bag. Too funny…they were starting to grow!!

So, I’ll begin by trimming up all the carrots. They should keep another month or so in the refrigerator. They’ll be ready for salads and dinners.

After 4 months in the garage, they are still tasty, crunchy and very orange!

It’s very nice to be reminded how much we enjoy the garden produce all year long! Our canned 4-bean salad, pizza sauce and pickle relish are frequent treats all winter!

The 2024 gardens at the Kisner homestead are winding down. It always feels a little sad to see the plants turning brown. However, we are still harvesting a few things so it’s not over yet!

My patio planters did a great job with lettuce and radishes this summer. By mid-August I had had enough radishes for a while and the lettuce was attracting hungry aphids. I pulled everything and Bert put fresh soil in the bins. I planted spinach in all of the bins thinking I could harvest it all at once, dehydrate the leaves and spin them to powder in the blender. Then I could add a spoonful of powder to soups and smoothies. Great idea…not! August was really too hot for spinach and then we had tons of rain that just overwhelmed the tiny seeds. This week I cut off most of the spinach that had tried to grow and gave it to a friend who had bunnies…it would not go to waste! I have two bins of spinach that seemed to do well, so I’ll let them go until the first frost and see if it works!

These sections might actually produce some spinach!

These sections had a few green shoots that I cut for the bunnies. We’ll compost the leftover roots.

The fenced sections off the patio had mixed success.

The front section had sugar snap peas in the spring. When we cleaned them up, we found a few volunteer potatoes that came up from last year. We haven’t dug down to see what actually grew yet. The section behind that has zinnias and giant marigolds. They are beautiful right now. They have been a delightful treat as everything else is dying down.

To the left of the empty potato patch, we planted just 2 yellow pear tomato plants. They went nuts! They have leaned into each other and the fence is holding them up. The tomatoes are delicious and make a great snack!

Behind the tomato section we had 2 hills of zucchini. I think we harvested about 10 small zucchini and that’s it! Who knows if it was the weather, the soil or the seed! We’ll consider it next year.

The fenced garden up on the hill still has some green plants!

I’ve begun trimming the lavender so it will be good over the winter. Bert discovered one lone poison ivy plant right in the middle of the lavender. Luckily he put some gloves on and removed it before I started trimming!

We tried a late planting of green beans in early August. I think the birds pecked up some of the seeds but the ones that grew are making blossoms so we may actually get a few more beans!

Our carrots have done very well this year. We’ve pulled a few and will continue to dig them up as needed.

And then we still have tomatoes ripening! Many of the plants got chomped and stripped by giant horn worms…UGLY…but the tomatoes just kept on growing.

I’m most disappointed with the echinacea. They look great around the 4th of July, but very quickly they started dropping their seeds and now look pretty sad.

So, that’s the status of our garden today. All I have to do is look in the refrigerator and on the kitchen table to see that we’re not done with the garden yet!

Keep checking the Farmer’s Markets near you. They should have fresh produce through October and November around here. Enjoy!

August is the month we start to appreciate what a small garden can produce. In January when we order seeds we aren’t thinking about bugs or blight or wandering hungry deer. We’re thinking about next year’s vegetable soup and homemade pizza. Much of our gardening time is spent keeping things growing through dry and wet weather and away from hungry critters roaming by.

In early June we enjoyed fresh lettuce and radishes that were grown in raised planters right by the patio.

I did not get the sugar snap peas in the ground early enough, so while we had some peas, the weather was getting too hot for them to be happy. They did taste good!

The first green and yellow beans were delicious, but there were not enough at one time to can my 4-Bean Salad. Luckily, the farmer’s market had piles of lovely beans ready all at once!

As our small patch of beans are ready, I can easily pick them and get them into the freezer, a few bags at a time!

We had high hopes for the zucchini, but somehow they produced about a dozen little ones and then the plants just gave up. I had enough to try zucchini fries, zucchini bread and zucchini fritters. I now have some good recipes for the future!

Now, the tomatoes are turning red! Every few days more get added to the pile on the dining room table! I’ve been cooking about 15 at a time and freezing the sauce. This week, I’ll thaw everything out and we’ll can our pizza sauce. We’ll be set until next fall!

We add red peppers, onion and garlic when we cook the tomatoes. They get blended in the food processor to make a smooth sauce at the end.

Since we haven’t canned the pizza sauce yet, here’s a picture from a few years ago.

Finally, the last thing we’ll harvest from the garden this year are the carrots. They always seem to have trouble getting started, but a few days ago, I pulled two to see how they were doing…

…and I think we’ll have a good crop this year. No plans to do anything with them, except clean them up and store them in the refrigerator. We love raw and cooked carrots, and a carrot cake might materialize one day!

And that’s why we still garden! Enjoy!

Hard to believe it’s almost August! The garden has struggled with dry conditions. Bert has watered everything almost daily and yet it’s just not the same as a good soaking rain. Here’s a picture taken from the patio, looking up to the garden on the hill:

Each section of the garden has changed from just a few weeks ago! The raised planters on the patio are finally finished with radishes and lettuce. It’s just too hot and dry to keep them going. We’ve cleaned out all the roots, added more soil and planted spinach in all the sections. My plan is to let it all grow, harvest it all, dehydrate the leaves and turn them into powdered spinach…perfect to add to soup and smoothies. The heat should get them going and the coming fall weather will be the best to finish it off.

With the fenced beds off the patio, the first section had sugar snap peas. Most of them we ate right out of the garden or in salads. When we pulled the plants, we discovered a lone potato plant had come up from last year. We’ll see what we get from that volunteer!

The yellow pear tomato plants are taller than me right now and tomatoes are ripening every day.

Behind the tomatoes are the zucchini plants. We’ve had a few already, with a few more on the way. Luckily, we’re picking them small so we can keep up! Actually, the plants look like they are tired out and ready for fall!

To the right of the zucchini are flowers…zinnias and huge marigolds. They’ve been a nice addition to the garden! The marigolds are in the back and are supposed to be taller than the zinnias. They should flower soon!

Up in the garden on the hill, the lavender is about done. The bees have been loving the patch all summer. By now the flowers are dropping their petals. Not sure if we should just cut them off now or leave them as is for the winter.

To the left of the lavender were the green and yellow beans. We pulled the plants over the weekend. Bert tilled the soil, added fertilizer and planted some more. We’ll see if they have time to make beans before the first frost.

Then, we have the carrots. They are doing well, but need the whole summer to grow. At least the plants look healthy.

The next row has the second planting of beans. I started them about the third week of June. They are now flowering. In a week or two, I’ll have more beans to pick!

The tomatoes are finally starting to turn color. I guess the big green worms that stripped the leaves off the tops finally did their thing and transitioned to moths…or whatever they turn into. The plants seem to have recovered and I can see very soon I’ll have more tomatoes than I can imagine!

And finally, my lovely bed of echinacea is looking kind of bedraggled! The dry weather wasn’t kind to the flowers!

Very soon my kitchen table will look like the produce section of the grocery store! So far…it’s just the beginning! Enjoy!

Before I spend the next three days sitting at an arts festival across town, I thought I’d better update you on the garden progress. Everything is doing well but I will miss the first picking of the beans. Some are ready right now, so I enticed a neighbor to come and pick some right now…I guess the deer have found her garden and made short work of her bean patch! By Sunday, there will be more to pick!

So, starting on the patio…I pulled the last planting of radishes. Bert will clean out the roots, add more soil and get it ready to replant. I may wait a week or two…I have several bags of radishes in the refrigerator so I’m set for salads for now.

Radish beds ready for a refresh!

The Little Gem lettuce has been excellent. It grows quickly and stays crunchy in the fridge. Here are some just making heads (almost ready to cut) and the next round just beginning.

The sugar snap peas are filling out. I don’t see the plants surviving much longer in this heat. The peas are delicious!

The yellow pear tomato plants are taller than me! Lots of tomatoes but not turning color yet. We’ll have a bunch!

The zucchini plants are growing well. So far, we’ve eaten about 6 zucchini but we’re picking them when they are small. No avalanche yet!

The flowers are starting to bloom and they’ll be a pretty addition to the back yard.

Remember the rose bush in a pot that was getting chomped by roving bunnies? Bert put it up on the picnic table and it is blooming just fine! I’m trying to keep up with the spent blooms. More blossoms to come!

Up in the garden on the hill, the lavender has exploded into color. The bees are very happy!

Some of the green and yellow beans are ready right now, thus my frantic call to my neighbor. Hopefully, the rest can hold on until Sunday when I’m available to pick them.

The carrots finally look like they’ll produce. Beside them on the left of the picture is the next planting of beans. They won’t be ready for a few weeks but that’s fine!

And then there are the tomatoes! Lots of green tomatoes!

However, when I looked closely, I noticed about half of the plant tops had been stripped of leaves! Yikes! Did the deer hop the fence? I was so upset I called Bert to come look. Turns out if it had been deer, the stem would have been chomped off too. The leaves were just stripped off. Turns out the culprit is a giant tomato WORM! They were even taking bites out of some of the tomatoes! Bert will spray tomorrow after the rain tonight and hopefully that will end the snack bar fiasco!

And finally…the glorious Echinacea have re-seeded themselves for several years and are spectacular! The bees and butterflies are busy. Enjoy!

The garden is starting to develop nicely this year. So far, the plants have not been bothered by fungus, bugs or critters! Well, except for the tiny rose bush we put in a big pot. I think it’s down low enough that a hungry bunny has been able to taste the new growth!

We’ve had enough rain that the plants aren’t stressed about that; the summer is young…so fungus and bugs aren’t a problem yet. We’ll see if the deer get adventurous and nibble on my small yellow pear tomatoes when they get here. All we have a flowers so far.

So, here’s a tour of the various beds:

On the patio, our raised planters are doing well. We’ve started cutting the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce for sandwiches. I started another batch of the Little Gem lettuce in the two empty sections.

The Little Gem lettuce is starting to make small heads…just right for one person for a salad. We’ll start picking and eating that soon.

The second planting of radishes is going strong.

You can sort of see the chomped off tops on the tiny rose bush.

The fenced gardens off the patio are helping the sugar snap peas grow up and we finally have the first flower! There’s hope for peas in our salads someday soon!

The yellow pear tomato plants look healthy and have their first blossoms.

The two hills of zucchini are going strong. I had planned to compare how each hill did with two different brands of seeds…but of course now I can’t remember which is which! I guess it doesn’t matter but I’m more worried that I won’t be able to keep up as they produce.

Hill #1

Hill #2

And the last section of the fenced garden by the patio has two rows of huge flowers…one is a giant Marigold and the other is a Zinnia with double flowers that may be up to 2 1/2 inches across! These are meant to be used as cut flowers. I hope the deer don’t like them!

We remembered we were going to plant flowers around our lamp post out front…and then we’ve watching some plants we grew last year come up again…we had no idea they were perennials!

The fenced garden on the hill is starting to look encouraging. The row of lavender we planted last year made it through the winter just fine. I should soon be able to start cutting some to dry.

The green and yellow beans continue to grow.

The carrots have finally popped but they are still pretty tiny…here’s a close up:

The tomatoes have blossoms! This year we’re growing 6 plants of a large variety called, “Bodacious.” The other 6 plants are our familiar Super Sauce tomatoes from Burpee.

Of course, the Echinacea plants have gone nuts! I just noticed the first flower has bloomed. It won’t be long until the whole bed is beautiful!

While we’re waiting for baskets of vegetables to appear, my first task of the summer is to make applesauce. I usually go out to Way’s Fruit Farm and get a bushel to work with. These would be apples that were picked last fall and stored over the winter. By now, they are much easier to peel! Happy Summer!

The garden is finally starting to look like it might produce stuff eventually! We’ve had enough rain so even the grass doesn’t have brown spots, like last summer. The rain barrels are now empty…all water was moved up to the large tank by the garden yesterday. Just in time, it’s supposed to rain later this week!

Yesterday, the radishes looked ready, so I pulled them all! Nice crop. A little spicy but tasty. I’ll replant the spaces with the same radish seed, but alternate in each section.

The Black Seeded Simpson lettuce is filling out. The leaves will make a loose head and should be crisp.

The Little Gem leaves are starting to curl and should make small heads…just right for a single serving!

The yellow pear tomato plants look really healthy but I’m glad we planted only two…they can be quite prolific.

The zucchini plants look good!

The sugar snap peas are finally reaching out. Bert added a coated wire grid to help them get started in climbing.

Up in the big garden, the bed of lavender is going nuts! I can see I’ll have a lot of lavender buds to work with this year.

The green and yellow beans are coming along!

The tomato plants continue to fill out.

And, of course, the echinacea is reaching for the sky. You can see the flowers just about ready to bloom.

That’s the tour for today! Gardening is definitely a process, with lots of “waiting” time. However, I’m anticipating the harvest, as I make sure I have a plan for each of the vegetables. Zucchini, green beans and tomatoes can quickly get out of control. Such fun!

We had a beautiful day yesterday and enjoyed a visit with Kathy, Ben and Anna! It was also time to plant a few more things in the garden. We’re pretty confident that we won’t see a killing frost in the next week or two (smile…you never know!)

The radishes are doing well. I’m always grateful they are in the waist-high planters so I can keep an eye on them.

Bert planted the tiny Rose Bush we were given as a gift into a very large pot on the patio (thanks Barbara and Bill). We’ll see how much it can grow outside this summer before we consider a more permanent location.

The Sugar Snap Peas look pretty tiny, but if you look carefully, they are already sending out little runners (on the upper left).

In the fenced area by the patio, we decided to add two yellow-pear tomato plants to the potatoes that came up from last year. We’ll see how many potatoes actually grow! (Tomato plant on the right, potato on the left by the fence.) Guess that will be our experiment this year.

The rest of the tomatoes were planted up in the garden on the hill. Bert planted six SuperSauce tomatoes (like hefty Roma tomatoes) and six “Bodacious” plants (that are supposed to get pretty big) just for fun!

We still have some tomato plants left that have been promised to friends so we’ll deliver them soon.

Finally, the lavender and echinacea are quietly getting bigger. Soon flowers will bookend our garden on the hill!

We enjoyed Kathy, Ben (almost 17) and Anna (almost 12) for the day! I was able to unload some books from my shelves to the kids…part of my secret plan to start downsizing…sending them home with a bag of stuff each time they come to visit!

Of course, I can’t seem to remember to take pictures, but as they left, I managed to snag a few selfies. The kids are growing up so fast!

I hope you had a good day also!

It’s finally time to start getting the garden ready for this year! We’ve had so much rain that it really kept us from playing in the dirt! The grass has benefitted from all the water and is a lush bright green.

Garden beds have just been too soggy until today. We still may have a frost at night so sensitive plants need to wait a few more weeks indoors.

The three kinds of tomatoes Bert started from seed are doing well in the shop under grow lights. First, we have our standard SuperSauce tomatoes:

Then Bert thought he’s try something called “Bodacious” Tomatoes from Burpee…supposed to be a huge, solid tomato:

Finally, I requested a Yellow Pear tomato…hopefully will be good in salads. I’m hoping I can share a few plants with my daughter or the neighbors…we certainly don’t need that many little tomatoes!

Frankly, right now they all look like generic tomato plants!

Today, I got out the seeds I’ll put in my planters right by the patio:

These planters will hold two kinds of radishes and the Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce:

Along the outside edge of the patio, I’ll plant Little Gem lettuce…it’s supposed to make little heads so I tried to put just 1-2 seeds in each hole and spaced so I don’t have to thin them out. It doesn’t look very exciting right now, but these planters keep everything up and away from roving bunnies looking for a snack!

Then, in the fenced beds just off the patio, I’m trying Sugar Snap peas so they can use the fence to climb up. I haven’t done peas for quite a while, so we’ll see if it’s worth the effort!

Bert has the upper garden tilled and ready to go but it will be the middle of May before those seeds and plants go in the ground. Next is probably setting up the rain barrels.

So, there is the beginning of our 2024 garden. Hopefully, everything will be more colorful in the next month! Enjoy!