Summer Garden and Hoop House

Our new Hoop House!!!!

 I was super excited about the extra growing space.

Tim and I had been working on it since January/February. We laid the row cover down and got the pipes in. It sure was cold and we worked mostly at night. Our determination paid off.

As I worked getting seeds started inside early for spring, I got cabbage, broccoli and lettuce already in the outside beds. By March, I already put the potatoes in the ground. I have never got anything in sooner. The hoop house sure changed a lot of things. I was able to keep things inside until I was ready. It was way more space than having it in the house.

Tim helped me get buckets full of dirt and the strings up for a trellis.

Any available bucket I put something in it.

It didn't take Tim long to get a water system going in the hoop house.

Another thing I needed to do was move my flowers and herbs into the garden area.

We wanted them to all be together. For several reasons but the main one was getting water to them. I have two pumps in the garden area.

Getting more stuff into the garden. Just think last year I only grew from 4 rows.

This year I am growing from 14 rows plus the hoop house.

Everything has been growing and you can see the string lines hanging down to the plants.

Potato Bed

Potato harvest

Green peppers  grew like crazy this year. I put tons up in the freezer. I dehydrated and used them in meals.

These were a surprise hot pepper. The label said green pepper. I thought they might be a sweet banana pepper. To my surprise they weren't. I used them in my salsa making.

My row of pepper plants and Green beans.

This was my first year to actually get a crop of onions to grow.

Onions and garlic drying.

We had them in the rafters and in bins laid throughout our garage.

I never harvested this much in all of my years gardening. I only dropped in two pictures but it filled up our garage.

The sizes of these onions were so big.

I have grown lettuce in the past but this years harvest was just unbelievable.

Every week I kept bringing in Tomatoes,

Green beans,

Cherry Tomatoes, Green peppers,

Cucumbers, hot peppers and finally melons and watermelon.

Wait... more tomatoes.

And then all of sudden a big batch of romas decided to be ready.

I canned tons of salsa and marinara sauce.

Canned tomatoes

Pizza sauce

Green beans and more tomatoes

Let's not forget the peas.

I put them up in the freezer.

I also canned up corn, corn syrup, corn jelly and lard. My dehydrator has been running nonstop for the summer and still going. Right now I have sliced cherry tomatoes in it.

Check out those grapes. I will say we didn't get a lot this year due to those Japanese beetles eating and sucking everything out of the leaves. That really made me sad.

Our first pears!!

We also got apples this year. Super yummy!!!

I have been so blessed and exhausted this year by our ability to grow this much food.

Always do your best,

what you plant now,

you will harvest later.

Og Mandino