This is our first year having a big vegetable garden and let me tell you – we are hooked! The most difficult part for our family so far was the actual test of getting our garden in the ground. Before we could till our garden we had to break up all of the ground with pick axes. It took us a month and counted as our ‘homeschool P.E.’. After the ground was broken we were blessed to borrow a tiller from friends. We can see that we need our own tiller now; my husband is working Craigslist to purchase a used one for next year.
I’m reading up on canning and canning recipes. Here is my gardening board and homesteading board on Pinterest.
Please leave me your wisdom, recipes, and ideas in the comments.
Country Garden Tour ~
This is the front view. You can see our tomatoes and Naomi.
These are more of our tomatoes. I hear that we’ll have plenty! Right now we have a lot of green tomatoes developing.
These are our squash. Let me tell you, we are already squash RICH. The kids love eating it, because they grew it!
Squash, squash, and more squash!
And a few cucumbers. 
Our biggest surprise is our pumpkin patch. I had 5 packs of pumpkin seeds that had expired several years ago. Since we had the space (& Naomi wouldn’t give up ) we went ahead and planted them. BOY, was I surprised! It looks like we’ll have plenty of homemade pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread this fall.
List of what is growing in our garden:
- Tomatoes
- Bell Peppers
- Jalapeno Peppers
- Banana Peppers
- Cabbage
- Broccoli
- Sunflowers
- Squash
- Cucumbers
- Cantaloupe
- Watermelon (3 different kinds)
- Pumpkins
I wanted to also do green beans, corn, lettuce and potatoes. We didn’t get those in this year. For our first year I feel that we have plenty to work with. Now, give me your gardening, canning and recipe ideas! What else can I do with squash? I’ve fried it, steamed it, and I know that it’ll go great is my skinny soup; I’ll gladly take other creative ideas.
Hi, for your squash you could try splitting it down the middle, scoop out some or it, and stuff it with whatever you want and bake it. Make a squash cassarole, saute it with other veggies until just tender. I don’t see why you couldn’t grate it up like you zucchini for bread. Some people like to make squash pickles. I am limited on what I do with squash at my house, since hubby and kids only like it battered and fried–but these are what I would do with it if I could!
Stirfry summer squash with a little soy sauce, ginger, and garlic. I have read that you can dehdrate it if you don’t have room to freeze it. This is our first year having a garden and we are eating a fair amount of squash too. I am wanting to try stuffed zucchini too. Snappeas were my kids favorite in the garden this year and they are so nice because they just need to be washed and eaten.
Beautiful! We have lots of similar things…no broccoli or jalepenos though! And we did do corn and beans, only I didn’t realize I’d planted pole beans, so we just put up wire supports! My children are looking forward to veggies sauteed in butter and garlic for dinner. I usually use whatever squash I have along with an onion, sometimes potato or whatever else we have. Then I either use diced garlic or garlic salt. Never any left! With the yellow squash I’ll peel it, boil it and mash it with butter salt and pepper. Actually it’s more creamed than mashed. With zucchini we love zucchini chocolate chip cake or breads of course. I also like to slice it thin and layer it in a casserole dish with tomatoes, onions and buttered bread crumbs and bake it until it’s tender. We grill all squash with whatever other veggies we have…sometimes w/ steak or sausage. Then drizzle olive oil and garlic salt or powder. Our garden is just starting to really come on. We’re battling squash and cucumber bugs, so hoping we still have a good crop! Thanks for sharing these beautiful pics. It is so awesome to have the whole family involved in gardening. My son wanted his own garden plot along with tools and seeds for his birthday (he turned 8). He carefully tends it and is a big help with the big garden as well!
Love the garden! I bet the kids have had a blast! My garden currently consists of tomatoes and peppers on my balcony…gotta start somewhere!
Your garden looks beautiful! My favorite first-of-the-season dish is to saute up a fistful (or 2) of fresh green beans in a little olive oil (a dab of butter added makes it even better!) and after 5 minutes or so I add some chopped onion, then another 5 minutes I add thickly diced yellow squash and zucchini, Sprinkle with Seasoned salt, garlic salt and lemon pepper. Cook til yellow squash is just tender.
We also had to break ground with a pick ax. We bought a Troy Horse tiller. It is the best. I am glad your garden is growing. We had a very cold spring, everything is at least a month behind. We will be putting in a hoop building this year. I can’t wait.
I guess you don’t get any critters boterhing your garden since i don’t see a fence. We have deer, and ground hogs that eat EVERYTHING!!
Well…not YET anyway. We did have racoons on our porch last Summer. I know there are critters around. We’ve talked of making a fence. I hope that we get one up before the critters find us!
My favorite way to eat squash: boil the cut up squash for a few minutes, add it to a pan with sliced onion and some bacon. Cook it all up in the pan until the bacon is cooked and everything else is tender. It’s sooooo good. Probably not very healthy, though, but sooooo good. Also, if the critters end up finding you, we got a spray from Lowe’s called “liquid fence rabbit and deer repellant” that has worked pretty well. Putting up a fence around our garden was going to be too pricey this year. But the man at Lowe’s told us about the spray and said to also put tomato stakes around the edge of the garden and put fishing line around it and tie pie pans on the stakes to help keep critters out.
My grandmother used to tie strips of mylar balloon (or strips from a mylar potato chip bag) to her stakes and scatter the hair from her brush to the wind in the garden. The dear don’t like the hair, and a lot of critters are afraid of the mylar–Here in CA, vintners use the stuff to keep birds away from the grapes.
I cook acorn squash and my grandkids just love it. I cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds and fill the cavity with (cut-up) apple, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a dribble of olive oil (we have allergies to butter and margarine). I bake it in the microwave. When it is finished cooking, I scoop out the squash/apple mixture into a bowl and serve. Everyone gets some of everything and it is a favourite.
Here’s my advice:
Save those watermelon rinds! Peel them to eat in salads (or lightly cooked) or to can them as pickles–they’re great! And nutritious!
This is my go-to source: http://www.watermelonrind.com/
Pumpkin leaves are also edible…
http://www.livestrong.com/article/468239-how-to-cook-pumpkin-leaves/
…as are squash and pumpkin blossoms. Treat them gently. Any pumpkins that are still babies at the end of the season can be used as summer squash. Broccoli and cabbage are different types of the same species, bred to accentuate different features. Enjoy the Broccoli leaves and cabbage flowers!
Here’s a chart of garden vegetables and their “secondary” edible parts: http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/newsletters/vpmnews/apr02/art4apr.html
I’ve been doing a little more water bath canning every year for the last few years (although this is the first time with produce that wasn’t purchased!). It really isn’t that hard. If it’s just too hot for you to want to do canning, you can cook the food to be canned and freeze it until the weather cools off. Alternatively, you can make like our great-grandmothers and do your canning on a hot plate outside.
We put it in our goulash and other casseroles. I love summer squash and zucchini!! We also garden, I grew up in a family where, if you wanted veggies for supper you either went to the garden or the basement for them. After I got married, I was amazed that you could buy canned veggies!
And my kids love gardening too. They think it’s so cool to pick and then immediately eat what they’ve picked. And in the winter, just go downstairs and get food. My 5 yo daughter says we have “a grocery store in our basement”. 
Another thing, if you do potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet potatoes, and apples you can keep them in sand in a cool dark place in your basement, and they should keep all winter!
Your garden is beautiful. I was so disappointed we didn’t get ours planted in time. We were in the middle of a move and just didn’t make it. Though we plan on having a fall garden. I can’t wait!!
How much area do you have set aside for your garden? Just wondering how much we would have to scale down. Thanks.
Do you have zucchini? We have TONS. I love to slice it in circles and layer in a 9×9 or whatever will feed your family: zucchini, then marinara sauce, then mozz and parm cheeses and repeat. 350 till done . YUM. Like lasagna, but not. So great with homemade bread, if you have time. I know……what time??? Enjoy the garden.
I was very disappointed that we didn’t get to plant a garden this year, my husband has been sick fir 11 months now. I like to grate the zucchini and measure the correct amount for the zucchini bread recipe I am using and put it into ziploc bags and freeze for later. I also like to slice the squash up with onions, salt and pepper and a dab of butter or margarine and place in the oven in foil packs. Hardly any cleanup.
What’s your secret to keeping your squash from rotting? Maybe I am over watering? Your squashes look gorgeous!
Tracy, this is our first year with a big garden. Mine aren’t rotting, but I don’t know what I’m doing – lol.