Our food as it grows

My husband and I have been married for nearly a decade in a half.  From that first year, when we planted upwards of 10 Roma tomatoes and a half dozen cayenne pepper plants, oblivious to the sheer volume that would result, we've always had a food garden.  We've made mistakes along the way (and still do), had some hits and misses (still do) and have found great delight in sharing it all with our two children.

There are some things that we plant every year.  Tomatoes are a must, though we plant fewer of them now than that first year (mind you, we've still got 6 plants going right now).  Peppers have never done well for us, but we continue to try, and this year it looks like we may have some success.  Green beans are popular "yard snacks" with the kids.  And our 6 year old son insists that we plant soy beans, which are a favourite of his.  We grew some lovely lemon cucumbers last year, and this year we're trying some conventional ones.  And I've had more success with lettuce as well this season.  Hooray for the cool, wet weather, I guess.

Speaking of which, that same lettuce loving weather has taken its toll on our beans, peas, radishes and beets (which are another crop I always try to grow and never seem to see success with).  Of the 20-30 snap peas I planted, only 4 came up, and those have been rather pathetic producers.  The snow peas are doing better, but the plants seem rather spindly and don't look terribly productive.  The green bush beans didn't germinate well, and are starting to look rather lace-like with their bug eaten leaves.  The soy beans look fairly resilient.  I have high hopes for them.

 

The one thing that does not struggle in our garden is raspberries.  Oh me, oh my do they do well!  I suspect they are plotting world domination.  We've dug out copious runners once already, and have twice as many to still remove.  They are an "ever bearing" variety, and this year's first flush looks like it's going to be a bumper crop.

We often try at least one new thing each year.  A few years ago (again at our son's request) we tried eggplant.  They did quite well, but we don't eat enough to really make having them worth it.  This year it's kale.  As with our tomatoes and hot pepper (and the seeds for our soy beans and sweet peppers) these lovely plants came from Tree and Twig.  OT, but you know how some people are in an animal shelter, when they want to take home every cute thing they see?  I get that way when I visit Linda's wonderful farm.  Hence the reason why I have 6 tomato plants, which will produce more fresh fruits than the kids and I will eat (no worries - I'll be roasting and freezing them, I'm sure).  Anyway, now I have four beautiful kale plants and no clue what to do with them.  LOL  I'm looking forward to trying some new recipes, and getting suggestions from the Twitterverse.