The Garden is Huge!!

  I was away for 2 weeks and when I got back the garden had grown so much I hardly recognized it! The tee pee is totally covered! Check it out!! This is my first green bean tee pee and I have to say I'm thrilled. I always wanted to grow one and here it is! It's so fun to pick green beans too. Most are pick-able from inside but I still do a circle on the outside, daily to check there too. We're getting a couple handfuls a day. Haven't hit the peak yet as there are hundreds of blossoms.  It still fits 2 chairs and it's fun to sit inside. 
My grand-daughter loves her green bean tee pee!

The view looking up.

This is Stella eating a green bean in her tee pee. She is 15 mos old now.

The view peeking out through the doorway.

I trimmed the bottom of my tomato plants to give better air circulation and to let the plants direct their energy toward the fruit.

The cucumbers are going crazy! We pick anywhere from 2-9 per day, so far. Still lots of blooms here too. It's taken some training to get the cucumbers to climb the little fence, but once they grab it, they really climb. It's nice to pick the ones hanging, nice and clean.

I made a half batch of bread and butter pickles to help use them up. My moms recipe that I remember from childhood. Yummy!!

Look how everything has filled in! the tomatillos are almost as tall as the tee pee!

In the sandbox I made a little maze. I had grown the new crop of peas in 2 pots but had no place to put them in the garden. I took a partial roll of fencing and uncoiled it in part of the sandbox. I placed one pot at the opening and one on the inside. Hopefully they'll grow on the fencing and will be a fun place for Stella, my grand-daughter to play. We'll see if it works. You can see the compost pile on the right. While I was gone Bob shredded massive amounts of paper so that's what is on top of the pile.
My rain barrel is upside down because I needed to drain it. We had a couple nice storms that filled it. I decided to use this precious water on the garden last week but could only get a trickle to come out. Now I realize I need to build a platform for it so that it will drain when needed. I think 2-3 ft off the ground should be sufficient.

The russet potatoes are getting big.

The tomatillos are almost as tall as the tee pee!

Here they are in their little husks. If you squeeze the husk you can feel that, at this point, the fruit inside hasn't grown enough to fill the husk

The sweet potato plant is overflowing!

An abundance of Roma tomatoes. Only a few ripe ones so far.

All my cherry tomato plants cross-pollinated with the Roma's so now we're getting tiny Roma's. I'll grow the cherry tomatoes in the front yard next year.

Lots of flowers in the garden brings the bees.

I love my sunflowers even though they didn't get very tall this year.

Here's a view from the compost pile.

Canned a few jars of carrots.

We canned 27 pints of peaches. Bob loves his peaches!
We got organic peaches from Morton Farms. They bring their peaches down from Palisades, CO. We got them at a peach festival. The north slope peaches are the best!!

Here's a batch of fruit cocktail. I put peaches, red grapes, green grapes and pineapple. Got 12 pints from this batch. All together we bought 4 lugs ( a box  weighing approx 18 lbs) of peaches. I've frozen a lot as well, for smoothies every morning!

I believe we're caught up. More to come soon!