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!