Mr. Curly and I planted a garden, with help from my father, way back in April. I realize it is now August, but we're starting to get food!
Our potatoes never grew, our sunflowers were eaten by bugs, our okra was drowned and frozen (apparently, while the calander says May, okra goes more by the night time temperatures, which were still dropping to the 40s).
HOWEVER, we have got squash and cucumber plants growing like mad! I've already harvested 4 cucumbers and they are the best I've ever had. Mr. Curly has 7 squash currently growing (they're about 2 inches long and so cute).
We have harvested green beans.
Curly Girl did a fantastic job helping with this. In fact, once I showed her what to do, she picked all of them by herself. Then we had to stop Curly Boy from throwing them back in the dirt.
Our green bean plants ended up giving us about 1/2 gallon of frozen green beans. That's not a lot, but enough for me (as I'm the only one in the family who will eat them anyway).
To preserve the green beans without canning, I merely blanched (boiled in super hot water) for three minutes, then put them in ice water for three minutes. I then spread them out over a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for 2 hours. After this, I was able to pour the whole sheet into a gallon bag. Now, whenever I want green beans, I can shake out of the bag just the number I want.
I've also noticed our corn tasseling out!
This was our first successful attempt at a garden (the last one, planted while Mr. Curly worked on his master's, didn't stand a chance) and has made us pretty happy. We're looking forward to next year, when we will have a little experience and an already cut garden plot to work with!
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