Brussels Sprouts & Pumpkins.

The garden is really looking full!  The Brussels sprouts plants are getting huge! The stalks are just starting to produce itty bitty teeny weeny little sprouts!

Brussels Sprouts (teeny weeny ones!)

Yeah, well, maybe you can’t see them on a compressed picture.  You might just have to take my word that they are actually there!  Every day there seems to be just a bit more growth.

Brussels Sprouts’ large purplish colored leaves.

Brussels Sprouts are a new adventure for us.  We started our garden three seasons ago, and every year we have expanded and tried something new.  I love that!  But I really think we need to add another bed for next year.  My pumpkin plants are squished!  I think I want a nice big bed just for pumpkins. 🙂

The veggie beds.

Here is a look at the other side of the garden.  The potatoes are doing well.  We’re still eating “last year’s” potatoes!  The peas are almost ready for picking.

Peas.

Peas.

Garlic, carrots, swede (turnip), parsnips, beets, rainbow chard, and more pumpkins.

Here’s what I’ve learned this season: Swede need their own bed since their leaves will cover up everything around them!  Carrots need to go in the higher beds to avoid carrot fly. We could never plant too much beet root (not enough of them germinated this year).  Planting onions from seed is easy.  That sticking extra pumpkin plants into one half of a tiny little veggie beds was a crazy idea.  I think a big bed right next to those veggie beds is just the thing!  Now to convince my husband 😉

A very busy picture! My focus was on the Sweet Pea at the front of the garden.

We planted some sweet pea at the top of our fruit garden (well, it is mostly fruit).  I wanted something fun to brighten it up.  I think they’ve done a good job.  We were quite late in planting them, so they aren’t in all of their glory just yet.

Sweet pea change color as they age.

Sweet pea.

Different shades of sweet pea.

It rather felt a bit like cheating when I bought a globe artichoke plant this year.  Isn’t that silly?  I have a few packets of seeds, but just never got around to planting them.  But in the end, I’m delighted that I did buy the plant because look what I have now:

Globe Artichoke plant.

This is one rather tall plant!  I have counted 5 baby artichokes on it!

A few of the artichokes.

Artichoke up close.

When do I confess that I have never had a fresh artichoke???  I love canned ones though! Nothing ventured, nothing gained!  (Guess who will be searching the internet  looking up how to cook a fresh artichoke?)

The front garden with a globe artichoke plant.

I have the globe artichoke in one of my flower beds.  I’ve seen them in gardens before and I found them to be a showy plant, and here is where I wanted mine to perform.

Flower garden with a globe artichoke plant and a view.

What simple pleasures!  How lovely to be able to plant food and flowers and enjoy their beauty and their taste!  Have you planted something new this year?

Dana

Some of my Shasta Daisy 🙂