Strep Throat, Thanksgiving, and Everything In Between

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, but I have good excuses. First, I got strep throat and was out of the office for a week. And, then Thanksgiving kinda snuck up on me and I was on vacation for a week. But, I have been gardening in those few moments here and there.

Here's a picture of the garden growing nicely. The lttuce have taken off. This is really an experiment year for me - trying to figure out what I can grow and what I like to grow. Lettuce and greens do well, I'll have to stick with them.


I've expanded my garden into some old containers we had. This is a mineral block container for cattle that we've repurposed. My husband drilled wholes in the bottom of it for drainage and filled it with composted horse manure. I planted the grape tomatoes that I started from seed in it. I think the manure maybe too dense and doesn't allow drainage. The plants don't seem to be growing. We'll see. I may paint the container next summer to give it a little color for the garden.


I added some bare root strawberry plants. I lost a few in the first cold snap of the season, but since they come 25 in a bundle for $5, it wasn't too big a deal.


Here is the squash. I love growing squash. They do great and it's one of my favorite vegetables. I was hand pollinating for awhile, but the bees have discovered my squash patch and so I no longer need to hand pollinate. I picked my first crop out of there this weekend and made a squash casserole. It was yummy.


Also in my squash patch was the giant pumpkin that my dad brought me. The key word here being was. I killed it with the first freeze. I didn't cover it. Totally my fault. Unfortunately, my dad came up the day after the freeze and all he got to see were the mushy remains of the pumpkin plant.