Fall/Winter Garden 2011

This is my second year of trying to grow food all the way into winter. This summer was the driest on record and really really hot, Like 80 days over 100 degrees and no rain for what must have been 5 months. My summer tomato plants had grown huge and totally out of control by late Aug but they were still producing small sweet fruits. I should have pulled them early Aug but it was so hot, I thought a brand new baby plant would have been doomed. I finally pulled my summer garden out in mid Sept and set out with some new plants for the winter. I also bought a few bags of revitalize fertilizer and turned over all the soil.

My winter garden consists of 1 jalapeno plant, 2 sweet 100 tomato plants, about 10 squash plants and 2 very sad looking cantaloupe plants. I'm not expecting to get any fruit from the cantaloupe - they are tiny plants. Unless the made teeny tiny cantaloupes and the would be pretty awesome too.

 This is the garden at one month. Lots of growth from the squash plants. Yellow flowers on both tomato plants and 2 or 3 jalapenos on the 1 pepper plant.

 This is a good size one for only being a month old plant! Spicy and Green!!

 The beginnings of baby tomatoes!

And after months and months of our yard looking like hay - we had 1 rain and our grass finally came back. 

It was so nice to see some color out our back door! 

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By the magic of the internet blog - here are some photos of the garden after 8 weeks! 

 As you can see, I had lots and lots of squash blossoms! They were so pretty in the morning when they would all open up! The tomato plants have grown quite a bit and have lots of bright green tomatoes on them! And the jalapeno plant hasn't grown very tall but it has produced many tasty peppers!

 Big bright green tomatoes! Hope they ripen before the frost! 

 And my favorite - the tiny little squash that are coming in. A lot can hold up to cold temps so hopefully these cold nights go by fast and we still have a few weeks left!