The 2012 Garden is Winding Down (Final Garden Update for 2012)

When the garden is winding down each fall, I freeze fresh herbs to use all through the winter.  In this photo sage leaves, rosemary, and thyme are ready to go into the freezer.

It's been a while since I've posted a garden update, but this year's garden has been one of my most productive ever.  Now fall is here and the garden is definitely winding down.  I'm always sad to see the garden produce come to an end, so this time of year I'm busy freezing things from the garden. (See  My Favorite Tips for Freezing Garden Tomatoes, Fresh Herbs, and Vegetables if you have garden stuff you're trying to preserve.)  I've started freezing herbs for winter, made tomato sauce, and frozen pesto.  I've pulled out the green beans, peppers, and eggplant, but my garden still has plenty of greens flourishing, so I'm trying to think of new recipe ideas for using them. 

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Ripe Tomatoes and a Few More Garden Vegetables! (2012 Garden Update #6)

Ripe tomatoes are appearing regularly in the garden.

In my last garden update,  I was excited about the early vegetables and herbs I'd been using from the garden.  Now even more vegetables are showing up, and some precious ripe tomatoes have been making an appearance.  This seems like it's going to be one of my best garden years ever, and I'm guessing it was the rich compost my brother-in-law Clayton tilled into my garden beds plus a very warm spring in Utah that's created all this good garden karma!

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Eating Vegetables from the Garden! (2012 Garden Update #5)

There's plenty of Grilled Zucchini on the menu at my house!

Last time I shared an update about my garden I was excited about baby vegetables starting to appear, and now a few weeks later I'm happily using vegetables and herbs from the garden and looking forward to more to come.  The photo above shows what happens when you don't keep up on picking the zucchini.  Most of these are about the size I like, but the two giant 8-Ball Zucchini in the back are going to be grated up and turned into something like Savory Whole What Zucchini Muffins with Green Chilis and Cheese!

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Baby Vegetables! (2012 Garden Update #4)

I'm always excited by the arrival of the first baby vegetables in the garden!

Back in the old days when people would carry around photos of their kids and grandkids (instead of posting them on Facebook), I once had a friend suggest that I start carrying around photos of my baby plants.  I never did go quite that far, but there's no doubt that the arrival of baby vegetables is something I look forward to eagerly every year.  I hope this post doesn't inspire too much baby-vegetable envy among my readers and blogging friends, because this year it got warm very early in Utah, and because I was going on a long trip I planted my garden much earlier than usual.  I thought if it didn't make it, I would replant when I came back from the trip, but the weather gods were smiling on the garden and the veggies got an early start!

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The Garden is Planted! (2012 Garden Update #3)

It's hard to get your garden planted when you're off driving around the West, but the garden is finally planted!

When I'm on a trip, I work hard before I leave so that recipes can still appear on the blog, so readers might not realize that I've been off on a long road trip to visit my brother, visit a nephew and his family, see my friend Cheryl, and most of all to speak at Camp Blogaway (which I highly recommend, especially for relatively new bloggers.)  The weather in Utah got warm very early this year, so I did plant most of my garden before I left.  Since I've been back I managed to finish the planting and had good intentions of getting the garden nicely weeded before I took photos for the blog, but the rain gods made short work of that plan.  The garden loved the rain though, so here's what I'm growing in my garden this year, weeds and all!  Above is an early morning shot of the garden space just as the sun is peeking over the trees that are on the east side in my neighbor's yard.

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Saturday Snapshots: Enriching the Soil Before Planting in My Raised Garden Beds (2012 Garden Update #2)

Raised garden beds need organic material added to the soil every few years.

I got off to an early start on the garden this year, trimming my perennial herbs much earlier than I usually do.  Then a combination of me being sick and lots of rainy days in Utah conspired to put the garden on hold until this week.  Raised garden beds are wonderful because they don't require lots of maintenance, but your raised beds will produce healthier plants if you enrich the soil with organic material at least every few years.  You can buy bags of organic compost at a garden store, but many cities that collect yard waste also grind it up and create compost that's sold by the truckload.  I don't have a truck, but I am lucky enough to have a great family, and this year my brother-in-law Clayton offered to bring me a load of compost and till it into the soil for me.  (Thanks Clayton!)

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Saturday Snapshots: Trimming the Perennial Herbs in Spring (2012 Garden Update Number 1)

Nothing says Spring like perennial herbs starting to show some green!

Salt Lake has been having spring-like weather lately, so on one of those warm days I went out in the garden and trimmed most of my perennial herbs, making way for the green shoots to appear.  When I mentioned on Twitter that I'd been trimming herbs, a few people asked about how to do it, so I thought I'd share how my herb beds looked after their spring trimming.  Nothing gets me more excited about summer than the appearance of fresh herbs in the garden, so I love seeing those little spots of green!  (Links to gardening sites contained within this post are purely for information purposes and are not meant to be an endorsement of the site.)

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