The time has come

When Dan and I were in the beginning of our garden journey this year we talked about the realities of planting a large garden and the considerable tending it would take. We also talked about how very pregnant I was going to be by the end of the growing season. We both knew full well that there would come a time where my garden tending would end. That time my friends, has come. It has been a REALLY hot summer here, couple that with my growing belly and now growing back pain and I just have no desire to be outside pulling weeds or watering. Thank goodness August seems to have brought slightly cooler temps and hallelujah.....RAIN!! That's the only reason I have anything growing in the garden at all. At this point I'm going to leave the garden mostly to nature and harvest anything that grows and maybe water if there are too many days between rains, but that's it folks.

As of right now, the corn is done, cucumbers done, squash done, beans done, cantaloupe done, carrots done, and half of my tomato plants are done, but mostly from neglect and heavy winds that knocked them over and snapped their stalks. I have swiss chard growing pretty well, roma and cherry tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, basil, sweet potatoes, watermelon and raspberries. I might have some onions too, but they are underground so it's hard to tell. I find it really strange that my raspberries are fruiting again! Granted I know absolutely nothing about growing berries, but they fruited with the blackberries in early summer and now they are out of control with berries again.....but my blackberries have nothing. Weird?!?

Back in June I had big plans for my fall garden but at this point I don't even know if I am going to do a fall garden. I feel like yanking everything out when it's done growing, treating the soil and then covering all of my beds over with straw for the winter. It's not going to get any easier for me to garden these next 2 months, and imagining myself with a 2 year old, a 4 year old and a brand new baby out tending to my crops seems ridiculous! But, I want to have lettuce and spinach and a few other fall crops, so I may just keep one bed up and running and see if that is more manageable. I don't really feel bad about how things turned out this growing season. It's our first real year as gardeners and I think we have been very successful! We knew our limitations going in and we're being realistic about them.....or at least I'm trying to be. I think it might be normal at the end of a gardening season to be kind of over gardening.....until mid winter when the seed catalogs start pouring in and the excitement for spring planting takes over. I'll let ya know what I decide about our fall garden!!

Raspberries bursting out.....they are so delicious!!

A ton more waiting to ripen

This is a picture of my watermelon taken 1 month ago

This is that same watermelon now!!

We have 3 of these guys growing. They are gonna be huge!!

Our cantaloupe is done, but this was one of our yummy melons!
It was so sweet and juicy.....the girls gobbled it up.

Constant supply of peppers and tomatoes