Today, I’m hanging my head and sharing some sad photos of our garden. I’m also sharing some earlier shots from July, which will serve as proof that at some point this summer, our garden did look pretty good, even if it doesn’t look so hot right now. You can compare the two as before and afters…which is pretty sad.

The tomatoes started out so strong…but sadly, I think we got some sort of wilt or disease on them…

Now they look pretty sad… someone remind me to wash our tomato cages before our garden next year. I think the last two years we’ve had some sort of wilt or something on them and it keeps coming back and hurting the plants because I forget to wash the cages to get rid of it.

Yikes, right?

The peppers started okay and actually still look decent, though.

Fingers crossed I get enough to make at least one batch of pepper jelly to restock my stash.

Our eggplant had a strong start but they aren’t looking so hot right now, and they aren’t producing very much at all. Last year, they took off at the end and we ended up with an overabundance. We’ll see…

You’ll also see the tiny bell pepper in the upper left corner of the photo above that seems to look taller now, but with the same sad number of leaves as it had before…also proof that I have worked in the garden, at least a little bit.

I really enjoyed the peas and lettuce earlier this summer.

But they are long gone now.

The onions are long gone, too. Although I need to dig up that entire area because Wyatt only brought in three onions and I bet there are others out there based on the before shot from July.

We’ll see if I get that done or if I forget now that all the green tops are gone.

I’ve only gotten a few okra, which is fine, because I don’t even like okra that much.

I really only planted them for the blooms…and I’ve yet to see very many of those either…although they are bigger than they were in late July.

The cucumbers did amazing this year early on.

But we sort of stopped watering them and haven’t done anything to protect them from bugs, so hey are pretty much done now…which is fine considering we’ve had like 100+ cucumbers from our tiny garden. I haven’t had time to make pickles yet (and probably won’t!) but I’ve made lots of cucumber ranch/dill dip (so yummy–want the recipe anyone?) and had some yummy cucumber in my smoothies, so I can’t complain.

Not to mention cucumber and lettuce and tomato wraps for many, many lunches this summer. Again, so yummy.

I was excited about how well our green beans did. We got four pickings off of them this year, which is amazing considering we didn’t spray them at all for bugs.

I’m always excited because they are one of the first things to be ready each summer. And I hate picking green beans, but fresh ones are so tasty.

But…now that bed has been mostly cleaned out, although it needs some tilling under. I may try to plant more lettuce for the fall…but we’ll see. That may not get done. And if not, that’s okay.

The ones on the deck don’t look much better, and all in all, the entire thing has been a little sad this year. But, we have had plenty of produce to justify the cost (minimal) and since we really haven’t put that much time and effort in, I can’t complain about the lack of bounty we’ve seen. We’ve had more than I might have expected considering how little we’ve done to take care of it.

And, I can’t be too upset considering I spend my days with Will instead of watering the garden. Not that taking care of him is easier than taking care of a garden…in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Still, it’s a pretty good trade off, I suppose. 😉

Tell me about your gardens—I know we have some vegetable gardening friends out here in blogworld!