This year’s garden was definitely better than last year’s garden. I made garden boxes out of rocks and planted {mostly} on time.
It wasn’t a raging success. But it was better!
My biggest problem was that things didn’t grow very well.
All of the onions were really small.
The peppers would grow and look beautiful but before they could ripen they would start to rot at the end.
The corn grew, but was also small. But I did get a few zucchini! Not as many as I would have hoped for but the ones I did get were awesome. I accidentally let this guy get a little big. I normally pick them wayyyyyyy smaller :).
I also got some potatoes and beets. The potatoes were also on the small side but I actually liked them that way.
I got about a million cherry tomatoes that were really good and a few from my other plants that were also very delicious. I’m not a huge plain tomato fan but these ones were so good I could eat them plain! My herbs grew very well, probably because I have grown them before and I actually know what I’m doing when it comes to herbs :). It is SO nice to have fresh herbs. Stay tuned for a post on what I do with all my extra!
I took out almost everything except the herbs, the tomatoes, the pepper, the pumpkin and the zucchini. The herbs will stay in that box as some of them will grow back next year. Everything else will come out probably sometime in October. 
So. Now to make it better for next year! I am going to combine some of the adjoining boxes so that I have more planting space.
In addition to the longer boxes, I also think I am going to do a combination of planting in the ground and planting in boxes. We tilled a larger area in front of and to the side of my existing boxes.
I’m not exactly sure yet how many more boxes I want to make and how much I want to plant in the ground so for now I am going to cover all the tilled ground with all the leaves that are going to fall off of our trees and spend the winter planning! Oh, and here is about 1/4 of the rocks we “harvested” when we tilled. Gotta love it.
Another reason my garden struggled is my chickens found out where it was and dug it up pretty bad. I am going to fence it off for next year which will provide a couple benefits: I will be able to keep the chickens and other critters out AND I will be able to fence the chickens in when I do want them to dig it up. Like now! They are doing a great job tilling things up for me. They also seduced my neighbors rooster into coming over almost every day when I let them out. Ha! But I think it’s actually been good for them. They are all starting to lay and are laying consistently!
I’m pretty excited about all of these corn stalks. The tall ones are going to look great next to my door and I have some fun plans for a wreath using the others. We will see if it works!
Andy had a great idea for these dog houses too. I was going to just toss them but when I mentioned wanting some compost boxes Andy suggested using the dog houses! I think it’s a great plan. I think I will just turn them around and remove the tops, we’ll see how it works out!
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