Winter Garden

Because I know you all have been waiting with bated breath, here are the latest pics of our little garden.

First of all, here's what's left of our lovely Mimosa tree. I can hear the collective cry of "why" coming from you all. Here's why, we're getting two apple trees for Christmas (along with 2 grapes), and that is exactly where our new Pink Lady apple tree should go. And more importantly, our poor tree was infected. Severely. Over the course of this past year, we've lost two main branches (about one-third of the tree.) Just think, in 3-5 years, we'll have massive amounts of apples, citrus, and grapes, in addition to our growing garden.

I love that our garden gets bigger, and more efficient, each year. Last spring we added another 5' square, and this next spring we'll add the final section to give us a good 300-350 sq ft garden. Eric wants to claim some more "unused space", but I've put my foot down. That's for my rose garden. In all fairness though, he was thinking of 1 or 2 plants, but I had my heart on something closer to 6 to 8 plants. My heart just melts thinking of how amazing it will look in a few years...Okay, back to the tour.

New to our fall garden this year are peppers: 1 yellow and 1 orange bell, 2 anaheims, and 1 jalepeno. We also tried cucumbers this year. They've made some amazing pickles (along with the anaheims). Since the pumpkins did so well last spring, we thought we'd have them again. I'm sure they would have done better, had they not gotten powdery mildew on their leaves-we'll be lucky to get 5 fully ripened before the vine dies off. I got some beets in this year, but only 6-8 plants came up. Hopefully, I'll get more next year.


Some of our returning favorites include: beans (three varieties: wax, blue lake, and tender green improved), peas (we tried a dwarf variety, not too pleased with it), lettuce (mmm, salad), spinach, carrots (not quite ready, wait until Christmas), and of course, tomatoes. Two varieties this year: beefsteak and a cherry (if you look closely, you'll see more than a dozen cherry tomatoes on the plant).

Well, that's where we're at this year. Hope you enjoyed the little tour. By the way, any thoughts for pea varieties? Or other suggestions for plants to try? We love to try new things to see what works best here.