We have learned SO MUCH though. And honestly, I'm really proud we've gotten as much out of it as we have! Our garden started out so cute!
Things started to progess...and we even got tomato cages! :D
Little sproutings!!!
Lush and beautiful plants
So proud of our little garden :D
The beans took off!
We had baby green tomatoes forever...they took a long time to grow
Baby bell pepper!!!
Our first spinach!
Zucchini!
So many squash, we gave so much away!
and still had a ton!
It was so cool seeing everything grow. Knowing that we did- what a neat feeling! It was fun to run home everyday and see what changes happened :DThen the plagues came....first it was Japanese Beetles. They started to eat everything. I had to do some quick research and after killing lots of them, I settled on Sevin Dust. The Japanese beetles hit while we were on our anniversary trip, so it was hard to get them under control :(. Second, we dont know what it was but it ate up our green beans. We still dont know what it was to this day- we never got any :(. Third, were the squash bugs, aka stink bugs. These were the worst. We didnt know how to prevent them and didnt know their eggs were hiding on the underside of the leaves on the squash and zucchini plants. Once we figured it out- it was too late. There were eggs everywhere and it was just out of control. They killed our squash and zucchini plants :(
I had to dig them all up- there were just to many to maintain and the plants were dying anyways. I didnt want the problem to spread if I could prevent it at all. I'm pretty sure we also had some borers, but the squash bugs were the main problem. :( Luckily, it was early enough in the season that I just ripped them out and planted new ones! Now we know what to look for and how to get rid of the problem quick! Hopefully, we'll get more squash and zucchini. If we dont, that's okay we did get a lot! and we learned a lot.
Our sweet potatoes started to take off! and tomatoes started to ripen :D
First tomato!
So many goodies!
The last of our harvest...I ended up freezing a lot of this :D
My sunflowers started to bloom!
Then this happened...
And we couldnt catch her. So she's living somewhere in my garden now. I'm lucky I even saw her because I reached right into the tomato plant to grab a tomato and happen to see her. So lucky...so Scary!!! I hate not knowing where she is. So we are super careful!
Side note- I made zucchini noodles with a julienne tool I bought! They were really good! If we get more zucchini, I'll definitely make them again :D
I think our garden is finally under control again. A little Sevin dust every now and then and it seems to help. The squash bugs tried to come back on the new plants, but I've done my best to kill them and get their eggs off the leaves. Hopefully, it helps. We've had some SUPER hot weather lately and the peppers and potatoes are taking off! We also learned that we were over-watering and when we stopped, things seemed to do much better :D We are also getting TONS of tomatoes :D
This past weekend I took care of Krystal and Josh's garden for them and between theirs and ours- look at everything I got!
My sunflowers ended up dying :( It was sad. But they died everywhere- the ones on the highway and all of mine. I'm sure I did something wrong, but I cant figure out what. We probably wont plant them again. They were too big around the mailbox. At least I had my sunflowers for a little while! :D My dahlias are doing well!!
And my roses bounced back..I wasnt too sure for awhile after the
Japanese beetles got to them. Stupid Beetles.
I am so glad we did this garden this year. We have learned SO much. Like how to control some of these pests, not to over water, and what we would and wouldnt plant again...hopefully it will stay under control and we'll produce a lot more stuff this year :D