I was out of town for a few days and worried that my garden would suffer while I was gone. I watered it well just before I left, and crossed my fingers. When I returned, here were some of the goodies waiting for me.

Lots and lots of carrots! These monsters were started from non-pelleted seed (in wet paper towel inside a baggie) then transferred to the raised bed after they germinated. Many of these carrots are longer or wider than my hand. These beauties will be going into the slow cooker with a roast this weekend. I left several in the raised bed to continue growing.

Ground cherries! This was a new crop for me this year. I started both Aunt Molly’s and Pineapple varieties from seed in the Aerogarden, then tried a few different transplanting arrangements. Some of them went in the Earthboxes and grow bags on ground level. I also put one in a hanging pot. The Earthbox plant has grown the largest, but I’ve found ants in some of the “lanterns” after opening them up. I have no idea how the ants get inside, because I can’t even find a hole in the paper covering anywhere! The hanging plant has not grown as large, but the cherries from that one are ant-free. It does need to be watered more frequently though, so that’s a consideration. Still, next year I will put several more in hanging planters.

The gladiolus are blooming and they’re such a sight. I only cut the ones that have fallen due to rain or wind. I left the others for the hummingbirds. I also have a little patch of pretty white flowers — the ones in back with tiny little bells. Pretty sure they’re a weed because I didn’t plant them, but they’re adorable so I’ll keep them for now. They don’t make good cut flowers though, the little bells fall off too easily.

All the garlic was ready for harvest! I set it out to dry in the sun for a few days, then cut off the stalks. Talk about a no-effort plant. This garlic grew itself with nothing but complete neglect from me. In fact, I even crowded the planters with snow peas in between the garlic. I did cut the scapes, and that was about the only attention I gave the garlic since planting. This is about 1.5 pounds of garlic grown from the cloves of three heads (planted in late November, if I remember correctly.)

My cabbage plants were pretty much decimated by bugs this year, but I did salvage two nice-size heads. I cut up one for lunch and only used half of it; the rest went to the freezer. I fried up the cabbage with some bacon, onion, and garlic and had it with rice. A couple of zucchini and squash made another fried rice meal the next day. I will share the other squash with friends. The HUGE zucchini will be turned into muffins this weekend.

I’m growing several varieties of summer squash. This year the squash bugs attacked early and in droves — I could not keep up with them. I’m going to pull the plants and replant fresh ones soon. Though I hate to do it, I think I’m going to have to resort to using Bt or another chemical to keep them under control in order to continue to get squash. Normally I can get a lot of squash before the bugs catch up, but they are super bugs this year.

Did you spy the lonely cucumber in the back corner? This is the first cucumber I’ve grown in years. I used to get loads of them, but for some reason I have had no luck with cucumbers in the past 5 years or so. Maybe my luck is turning a corner!

I have neglected the lettuce for a couple of weeks and it’s growing into a rainforest. I need to get it cut and trimmed up before it all bolts. That’s the only problem with gardening — and it’s a good problem to have — you need to keep up with your harvest! I’m not always timely with my harvesting. I didn’t get a picture of the lettuce yet.

The impatiens I grew from seed have really taken off. I will definitely start impatiens and Wave petunias from seed again next year. This one has my favorite rose superbena tucked in the planter as well.

I love to look at other people’s garden and harvest photos. If you’ll leave a link to yours, I’ll check it out!