Grow Garden, Grow !

After getting a late start to the garden...some of the plants are finally starting to produce some fruits.  It has been a rough season, weather-wise.  Some days of scorching temps and insane humidity...and sometimes incessant heavy rain with no sun for days !  But we are still really enjoying it!

My two little gardeners helping me set up the gardening boxes!

 Our boxes are ready for planting!  The children said some prayers for our garden !

And the plants, seeds and bulbs are planted!

carrots, garlic, purple beans

kiwi, muscadine grapes, raspberries, blackberries

Our tomato plants suffered from leafminers early on and I thought they were doomed.  I did some research and ordered some Spinosad.  They have been sprayed a few times now and I think we have gotten rid of those little buggers.  The plants themselves are growing pretty tall, but only the grape tomatoes are producing.  I was REALLY excited about the Big Mama Paste tomatoes that we planted...but so far, no fruit.  The plants were young when they had the leafminers and I have read that it could affect the production or produce smaller fruits.  The plants all seem strong now and are flowering, so I am hoping they are catching up !

Leafminers !  

tomato plants and peppers

The purple green beans are Sophia's favorite right now...she loves to pick them right off the trellis and eat them.  She is patiently waiting for the carrots, garlic and sweet potatoes to be ready for picking.  This is our first time for the garlic and carrots.  The tops of the garlic seem to be burning a bit and I wondering if it is just too hot for them.  We chose a "heat resistant" variety but maybe it's just been too much.  I am going to try to plant them again in the Fall as well in order to see which crop does better.

The peppers are my personal favorite.  I have to plant more of those next year.  The Pinot Noir Bell peppers were the first to produce (forgot to take pics) and they were delicious.  Pretty, too!  I used them mostly in my salads because I really wanted to enjoy how fresh and flavorful they were ! Our Orange bells are getting to be a good size...just waiting for them to turn orange now !  The rest are green bells and haven't fruited yet.

Here is our first batch of Fairytale Eggplant !  This is our first time planting this variety.  Last year we did the regular eggplants, which did well.  Those are some prolific plants !  They grew pretty large and were beautiful.  They ended up shading the other plants around them, which I hadn't planned for.  This year we decided to try this one.  It is actually a very compact plant and could even be grown in containers. I had no idea what to expect, so we started with just one plant to see how it did in our garden.  So far, it is doing well and is very healthy.  They flower (and fruit) in clusters..and the eggplants are shaped more like small zucchinis.  I am planning to cook them tonight so we will see how they taste. They are supposed to be very mild.