Yet Another Garden Update

It's been a while since we've posted about our garden. Despite letting the time slip away, we have had a few eventful moments with our veggies. Gardening, it seems, is full of difficulty and disappointment. Through all of the excitement of planting, inevitably things find a way of going wrong. We have had some discouragement in the last month, and yet we have discovered that life has a way of pushing through the difficulties. 

When we first got everything planted we were excited to finally have everything in the ground. The plants were healthy, and we were ready to see them grow. 

 

It looked great, but this was not to last. Before long the bugs and bunnies started eating our crops. Rabbits snuck under the fence to nibble our pepper plants, we hadn't realized they had such an affinity for peppers. Our squash and cucumbers soon were decimated by insects that attacked the stems. Strangely, though there was obvious damage to the stems near the roots, the squash continued to grow. Then we had a cold snap hit overnight, and by midday it was obvious that many of our plants were dying; it seemed we would have to start all over again... 

Disappointed, as all of our plants in the back apart from the kale needed replacing, we focused for a few weeks on the Microgreens indoors. After a couple of weeks, however, some of our original plants decided to make a comeback. Some of the seeds were also beginning to grow. 

And wow, the kale has been fantastic!  This picture is after harvesting and eating a good amount twice last week. 

Not everything has come back, but We are amazed at how much those that did fought to make it. We are also very grateful to our kind neighbors who provided us with a few of their extra tomato, pepper, and basil plants to replace those that didn't make it. 

We are learning so much this year. It is not always easy as we work toward our goals of becoming self sufficient and self sustaining. There are a lot of road blocks and barriers that we are learning to navigate, and many that our circumstances are not yet allowing for. We are grateful for the opportunity to learn and work toward these goals, and the encouragement we have received as we press forward. 

Thank you for reading. We hope sharing our experiments with you is helping encourage you to keep moving forward as you work on your own goals.