How did my garden grow?
November 27, 2020
The garden took up most of my summer. Here is the story in a few words and lots of photos.
Taking the leap
Over the years, I have grown lots of flowers and a few random tomato plants, but this year I decided to go for it and plant a “real” garden. A garden that was edible.
I started out looking for a vegetable seed pack since I wasn’t sure what would be good to grow. Something that wouldn’t die on the vine. Luckily, I found Zziggysgal Heirloom Veggie Pack and got growing. I also filled out my garden with seeds gifted to me and from Burpee. These seeds were amazing — easy to start both indoors and out — and whoa… look at this produce!
Flowers and other harvests
I still grew flowers, but the difference during this pandemic year was that I didn’t purchase any starts. All of the flowers were either perennials that re-grew or flowers grown from seed. Surprisingly, this was more fun to me than picking up plants at a garden center and sticking them in the dirt.
I also started baking bread, thanks to the easy recipes I discovered on the King Arthur Baking website. Their no-knead crusty bread is beginner-friendly, and if you let it sit for a few days in the fridge = YUM (step 5 on the recipe)
Good morning! 
Even the apple tree went crazy this summer. 
I purchased a “Flower Rocket” (as seen on TV!) at the dollar store pre-pandemic, and it did not disappoint. 
The poppies amazed me every. single. day. 
My garden helper had a penchant for peas. 
I have Sweet William flowers volunteering all over the place (they are prolific seed producers) and these hardy flowers were a favorite of the Swallowtail butterflies. 
I learned to make bread this summer(!) Thank you, King Arthur Baking for your fool-proof recipes!
But the real story was… tomatoes!
The package on the Jiffy seed starter said to plant 3 seeds then cut off 2 of the smaller ones. Well… the plants were so robust that I just couldn’t lop off 2 healthy plants! So I painstakingly separated the 3 seedlings in every tiny peat pot, questioned my sanity, and re-potted them. That meant that I had roughly 3 times the tomato plants I intended to plant.
I gave away tomato plants to anyone I could find to take them. Then I planted the rest (43 plants ?) in my garden and on large pots on my deck. It was the start of the Tomato Tsunami later in the summer.
The last days of summer
The summer got off to a cool start and we had a long stretch of warm days all the way until fall. But then… everything came to a quick end with sub-freezing temps and snow in the forecast. I harvested all remaining tomatoes on the vines (16 grocery bags) and let down the fence for the chickens to re-claim their area. They were delighted to finally get to inspect, close-up, everything that had piqued their curiosity all summer as I gardened.
A fitting end to a great season.
Happy chickens ❤️