What We Grew

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #5:

List

This summer, corn aside, we had a pretty successful garden. At least... the most successful we've had in a long time. Every year, our garden is a little different depending on what we want to grow and what's available at the nursery. 

Monday’s Harvest

Here's a list of what we grew this year:

Basil

Pros: I love the smell and taste of it. Sometimes when I'm in the garden, I'll pick a sprig just to sniff.  

Cons: We don't use very much of it, and my kids don't like it. Since we don't use much of it, it ends up spreading out and taking up a lot of garden space, and it goes to seed. 

Bell Peppers

Pros: I love having peppers on hand when I need them. I always freeze a bunch of diced peppers to use for soups, omelets, arc in the winter.

Cons: Like other crops, there are always too many when I don’t need them and not enough when I do.

Butternut Squash

Pros: They are delicious. I love baking the squash with butter and brown sugar. I also love making this soup, and this skillet. 

Cons: They are a pain to prepare (though microwaving them for five minutes makes them easier to peel and cube), and our plant only produced ONE this year. 

Cantaloupe

Pros: They're great to have on-hand for BBQs and picnics. 

Cons: The potato bugs usually eat them before they're ripe enough to pick. One variety that we planted this year, I didn't like the flavor of, but I don't know what kind it was (possibly ambrosia?) Also (and this is true for all vining plants, but I won't list this for each one), the plants take up a ton of room and make it hard to walk through the garden and access other crops. Next year we might forgo cantaloupe and just grow crenshaws (see below).

Cucumbers

Pros: I love having cucumbers for salads and veggie trays.

Cons: Sometimes they are bitter. Ick! And there are either ZERO cucumbers when you need one, or FIFTY when you don’t. Often I'll go looking for cucumbers and can't find any, and then three days later, there are ten cucumbers the size of my arm. They are really good at hiding. 

Corn

Pros: Fresh corn on the cob is one of the best things on earth.

Cons: We only got about eight ears. It’s hard to weed around corn in garden boxes, and the stalks aren't fun to remove from the soil (if we had a traditional garden we could probably till them, but in our boxes, they need to be fully removed),

Crenshaw Melon

Pros: They are so yummy! They are very similar to a cantaloupe in flavor, but I like them better.

Cons: They’re ugly. Some of ours got attacked by potato bugs before we got to them. 

Jack Be Littles (baby pumpkins)

Pros: They're just so cute and fun! They are a decoration that you grow!

Cons: My kids want to claim them all, and I don't want to let them have them. They want to carve them and put their paint on them, but no! Don't touch my little pumpkins. 

Jalapenos

Pros: I appreciate having a jalapeno when I need one.

Cons: I only need about two jalapenos a summer. That reminds me, I should dice and freeze the two that I’ll need in the winter.

Parsley

Pros: Like everything else, it's nice to have parsley on-hand. I never like to buy parsley. It’s an ingredient I will always skip unless it’s in my garden.

Cons: I need parsley more in the winter than in the summer (usually due to soup).

Pumpkins

Pros: It's so fun to harvest your own pumpkins in the fall.

Cons: The pollination window for pumpkins is so short that most pumpkins never make it. We ended up getting three from two plants - not even enough for one per kid.

Strawberries

Pros: It would be awesome to have enough strawberries to snack on and freeze for smoothies. We got starts from my neighbor, and they filled in the garden box beautifully with runners.

Cons: We only got three strawberries off them. We'll see what they do next year when they aren't newly transplanted. They traveled pretty far outside of the garden boxes, and they need to be thinned.

Tomatoes (Romas, Celebrities, and Cherries)

Pros: We had lots and lots of tomatoes. Enough that I put a box out on the curb once or twice a week with a FREE sign. 

Cons: I'm the only one who eats them. Also, when we would have big rain storms, it would accelerate their growth and cause the skins to split, so for a while, we had really ugly tomatoes. 

Watermelon

Pros: I'm super proud of any watermelon that comes from our garden. 

Cons: It's rare for us to get any watermelon off our vines, so it's just a waste of water and garden real-estate. 

Zucchini (and yellow squash)

Pros: Summer squash can be used in so many ways. I use it in several sheet pan dinners and casseroles and sautéed as a side dish. 

Cons: We get sick of it fast, and, like cucumbers, they hide, so you think you don't have any and then the next day, they are as big as your thigh. Also, the plants get tiny, itchy scratches all over me when I pick the zucchini.

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Usually at the end of the season, I'm more than ready to be done with the garden and take a break, but this year I'm not. I wish I could tear out the existing plants and start over right away. I look forward to spring, and in the meantime, I'll work on getting the garden area cleaned up little by little and finish some of the landscaping that still needs to be done around it.