Reaping what we sow

This is our third year in attempting a garden. We've always gotten something out of our garden, but we've had our share of failures and problems. This year Matt put me in charge of planting, and I kind of messed up a bit.

I put the zucchini closest to our fence since that row had the most room, but it also has the most shade. Matt's had to spray the plants daily with neem oil to keep the powdery mildew from taking over. We've never had much luck with our zucchini, unfortunately, but we'll keep trying. At least it's not the vine borers yet this year...

I also have the watermelons and cantaloupe sharing a row right next to the cucumbers. They're going a bit crazy and it's hard to keep the vines all separated. While I did thin the cucumbers, I guess I didn't thin them enough, so Matt's had to do powdery midlew spraying on them as well. Additionally, I either didn't plant the seeds deep enough or our storms took off a bit of our top soil, so Matt had to use potting soil to cover some of the exposed roots. *sigh* I never have claimed to have a green thumb.

Despite my mistakes, we're starting to get some veggies. Yippee! We've had a couple great dinners with our fresh green beans. Two nights ago I made some delicious chicken fajitas with fresh bell peppers from our garden (and fresh onions from the farmer's market). We also have little veggie buds on our squash, tomatoes, and cucumbers. The carrots seem to be doing well, though they take AGES to grow. Our strawberries had tiny marble sized fruit, but something (I'm guessing birds since we have a fence around the garden) ate them before we could pick them.

It's always exciting to eat stuff we grow ourselves. It feels like such an accomplishment, and I feel so self-sufficient. I got a water bath canner this year (and proper tools so I don't burn myself like last year) to can our picklers. Oh divine. I cannot wait for homemade pickles...

And here are two pictures showing our fence damage from the storm. The remaining sections on the front fence are not stable at all. I've been getting quotes to replace the fence (rather than repair...it's just such junk wood and it would be a ton of work for Matt to repair) and we're looking at about $3000 for the front and side with the most damage. Boo!