Suffice it to say, the garden was a huge success. Because we don't live on site, keeping up with the weeds was our biggest challenge (next to the Colorado potato beetles...yuck!). We averaged two trips a week, and each time we went the weeds were right back where we'd found them the first time. It took a good, solid day to weed the whole garden, so Sam started using a scythe more and more. Rather than weeding fully, we opted to "mow" and just weed directly around the roots.
In the end, we had a bumper crop of crook-neck squash; lost all the corn; had more peas and beans than we could handle (and dried & vacuum-sealed most into quart Masons for storage); a late crop of tomatoes that yielded 5 batches of salsa and several of tomato jam (we would have had enough salsa and tomato jam to open our own shop, had the frost not gotten the rest of the late crop); enough carrots and lettuce for several salads (but the matured faster than we could get there to pick them!); and most of the potatoes, although still in the ground awaiting final dig-up, survived the beetles.
A few early-season photos (mid-summer):
Sam shows off the peas (which grew over the top of the trellis and then tipped it over - definitely a prolific variety!):
The pea vines were quite possibly the most beautiful things in the garden this year:
Our engagement photo, in front of the pea trellis:
