If Only GRASShoppers Ate the Grass in the Flower Beds...

 

We've had many ups and downs with our garden this year.

It was our first year trying out these new raised beds, which are each tied into our rain water tank and set up with drip irrigation.

I bought all of the plants for my herb garden at the beginning of Spring except for the front left Sage plant that was planted in the Fall in a container and survived all the crazy freezes we had.

This bed started out the strongest.

In the back bed we planted tomato plants, jalapeno plants, onion sets and cantaloupe seeds.

The tomato plants and jalapeno plants were happy and grew.

The onions rotted or disappeared.

And the cantaloupe seeds sat in the soil forever before finally deciding to sprout.



And this last bed was planted with a variety of seeds.  Cucumbers, squash, zucchini, green beans, butternut squash, and green peas.

It did not look for impressive for a very long time.

Most seeds did not sprout and those that did looked sad.

So we enjoyed the herb garden and I made my first batch of mint mojitos.

Lily had her own special drink :)

And we also enjoyed our wild blackberries.

They produced like crazy for a couple weeks.

And we took advantage and made daily visits.

Lily learned to pick the black ones and leave the red ones for later.

I made my first blackberry pie.

It overflowed a little.

The rains came and came and things were really happy.

Seeds began to sprout.

Tomatoes began growing and reddening.

And then the grasshoppers came and started destroying it all!

The cucumber plants were eaten first before we had any veggies.

We got a few squash.

The plants looked great but the squash were never that appealing for some reason.

The grass guys ate chunks out of the tomatoes so we started picking them green and letting them ripen in the window and have used them in soups and salsas-yum.

And the berries were eaten by those greedy hoppers so Lily tells us "Gone Gone" every time we pass the bushes.

Most of the herbs were stripped too so I have a bag of limes and no mint leaves for mojitos-boo.

My mom and dad have cucumbers growing out their ears and I have been making refrigerator pickles, which are delicious.

I had to buy the dill instead of using it from my garden since the grasshoppers snacked on that before I got around to using it.

My parents also had a great crop of corn, which we all love, and tons of potatoes for all kinds of dishes.

I tried to tell the varmints to go hang out in my flower beds and eat all the grass and weeds coming up, but they started munching on my shrubs and roses instead...

On a positive note, we have had been blessed with beautiful rains, the blackberries were delicious while they lasted, the mojitos were marvelous, the salsa and soup was super, and I did 12 jars of pickles last night!  Thanks seester for your help and glad I noticed the missing ingredient from the list before it was too late!

How has your garden grown this year?