Garden goodies!!!!

The garden is looking so good these days!!!!  Last fall we topped each raised bed with mushroom mulch.  I love how it helped enhance the soil!!!!

The herb box is always fun to pick from and smell!!!!  This lavender smells wonderful.  I planted a dill plant for the first this spring and I added fresh dill to my refrigerator pickles I made the other day!  So tasty!  

Cabbage is one of my most favorite vegetable to watch grow.  I'm not why other than when I think of Peter Rabbits garden, I think of cabbage.  It's so beautiful with those huge leaves forming around the head of the cabbage.

We planted Zinna's and Cosmos in Ashlyn's small raised bed.  They are starting to bloom now!

Fennel ... well, I never planted these before.  I'm experiencing and not sure what to do next?  We love to buy fennel at the grocery store and eat the white bulb!  It tastes a lot like black licorice.  Ashlyn and I love it!!!  So, I decided to try to grow our own!  The fennel leaves are super tall with barely any bulb.  Why?  I did finally cut the top greens off and I hope this will force more of the plant power into the bulb area.  Ashlyn's got her eyes on these plants and can't wait to eat it!

The cucumbers are looking fantastic!  Never did I have these plants looking so good!  There are tons of blooms and we picked about a dozen cucumbers already!

 Right beside the cucumbers I planted a zucchini plant and egg plant.  So far the zucchini took over the space and the egg plant is hidden underneath the big leaves.  We love zucchini bread and zucchini foods!  We've got a lot of these so far too!

 Red beets are yummy and I pretty much planted these because I still had a pack from last year that I didn't plant.  I washed these, wrapped them each in foil and roasted them.  After 45 minutes I got them out of the oven and sliced them.  Harvard Beets are a favorite of mine and they were tasty!

I pulled the onions out of the ground yesterday and they are now on the shelf in the barn drying.  When I make salsa, the onions will be used up!

Carrots are still growing.

Tomatoes are looking great too!  In May, yes May, we had frost and even some snow.  I thought my tomato plants were not going to live, so I bought new plants and planted it beside my first plants.  You know what?  They all survived!!!  We should have plenty of juicy red tomatoes coming up!!!!

 And the sunflowers ... well, I planted three different kinds.  Mammoth, yellow and orange seeds.  Matthew made me this nice tripod structure that I wished the sunflowers would grow up and out of but the only seeds that came up are the smaller sunflowers.  So, we have sunflowers growing but not tall and high like I thought!  Oh well!

Teddy Bear Pumpkins are growing here and as much as I love summer time, I also love fall!!!!  We should have us some nice pumpkins by then!!!!

Here's my pickings from the garden!  I'm so blessed!!!!

The cabbage got made into coleslaw.  The onions will be used in salsa.  The beets were cooked and made into Harvard beets!

Gardening has become such a fun hobby for me!  I love how the raised beds give me options to grow foods and yet not have weeds growing out of control.  I love to visit my garden every day!  It's such a fun place to sniff and smell and watch God's goodness grow!