Our Garden 2009

Last year's garden was such a disappointment! Our peppers bloomed and our pumpkins put on fruit in OCTOBER, then were subsequently snowed upon and frozen solid. We literally got ONE zucchini for all our digging, dunging, and watering efforts.

This year's garden required even more effort. We were sod-busters this year! We dug out lots of grass to clear a space for the garden. It was back-breaking work, and we only ended up doing about 1/2 of our planned area (we'll get the rest done for next year.)

Then the pumpkin vines took over completely! We trimmed them so they wouldn't pull down our pepper plants, but everything else was just a tangled mess. We just dig through the leaves to see if there are any vegetables to pick. And boy, was our garden blessed this year!

We have boat loads of shiny red bell peppers! We tried making stuffed bell peppers and they're yummy! The rest are sliced up and in the freezer for us to enjoy all year long.

Our favorite, though, was cantaloupe! I don't know why I never thought to try growing it before. We weren't sure when to pick them, and finally one split and ants had just discovered it. But we got to it in time. And WOW, it's the bestest cantaloupe we have ever tasted!


But the pumpkins take first place for sheer mass. We had one get big and orange in August, and thought it was the only pumpkin we'd get. But the vines suddenly put on a bunch of fruit, and we got 3 small pie pumpkins and 4 big Jack o' Lantern pumpkins (one of each kind are still dark green and on the vines)

The one we thought was going to be so huge is on the far left. It turned out to be the smallest!
After lifting the pumpkins, Ryan decided to use his new wheelbarrow to haul them to the garage. Zach volunteered to help with his little wheelbarrow!
And then Zach got to ride with the pumpkin he dubbed "Big Daddy."


Curious, we weighed the pumpkins on our bathroom scale. It may not be very accurate for pumpkins since it's all fancy and foot-shaped, but check it out! "Big Daddy" weighs exactly the same as Jared does! We have a few more pictures here.

The others weighed in at 29.4 and 40.8 lbs, for an estimated total weight of 120 pounds of pumpkin! And that's not counting two still in the garden. Can anyone say pumpkin pie? We're making pumpkin cake with chocolate glaze for a Relief Society activity, and Ryan requested that I make pumpkin bread, too. Yummmmmm!

We had a lot of fun growing pumpkins this year, and we're already trying to figure out where to plant them next year so they don't completely overtake our other plants!

P.S. I don't get why I can't grow zucchini. Isn't it supposed to be a crazy-growing weed? Aren't there stories of having to lock your car while you're in church or you'll end up with zucchini on your front seat? On the other hand, so many people warned us that peppers are hard to grow. I'll take boatloads of peppers over a zucchini any day!