Garden Lessons

So I haven't posted much in the last month about my garden or anything else. I feel like me and my garden have fallen victim to heat stroke! Daniel and I worked hard to set up the garden, start our seeds, and transplant them. But after that everything seemed to stall. We had such of a hot June and our yard seemed to suffer in the heat. As did I, just running an errand in 100 degree weather seemed to steal all my pregnant body's energy reserves. And I guess it's no fun to blog about failures anyway.

So the last few weeks have been a blessing, we have gotten rain and a drop in temperatures. Both of which I am so grateful for. Our yard has greened up and I have felt more energetic the past few weeks than I did in June and early July.

As for our garden I will comment on our successes and failures. It has been a hard year for gardeners, even experienced ones. My grandparents garden has not been nearly as successful as it has been in the past. June weather was not good for gardens. My grandparents had a great corn crop, but everything else was either a complete failure or the yield was far less than it has been in the past. They live out in the country and have too big of a garden to water in times of drought. My Granny and PopPop were disappointed, but told me to not give up because this year was bad. They're already getting their fall tomatoes going.

As for our garden I will list some lessons learned:
1. Get started early or on time, but not late. This was a big mistake for us this year because it got so hot so early.
2. Pick out appropriate plants for your area. The cool weather tomatoes and onion seeds I bought were not such of a bright choice.
3. Plant carefully for your space, the melons (that have produced one melon) are overrunning our side yard, as you see from the pictures.

I planted some garlic last fall and I was really excited when I dug it up a few weeks ago and it had plentifully multiplied. I'm planning on planting some more this fall. It was super easy and successful. I got our seeds from our health food coop because I am interested in growing heirloom variety plants. The seed company the coop carries is Seeds of Change. And I will say I have already ordered a catalog and plan on spending far more time selecting the varieties I plant next year. I don't consider our garden a total failure, as you can see from the pictures our garden is really very pretty, beautiful plants (even without much fruit). Daniel told me to do the research and I'd figure it out like I did with my whole grain bread, I had to bake a lot of bricks before I could bake a good loaf!