Howdy everyone! I have some new garden pictures to share from the week. They are in no particular order, so just follow along and try to match up the pictures as I write! This week was rather momentous for Brandi’s Garden. In addition to the usual lettuce and berries I’ve been regularly harvesting, this week I picked a yellow squash (many more to come I hope, once we get over the Blossom End Rot), potatoes (these two red ones kept forcing themselves out of my garden), and green beans! For whatever reason, this is the first time I’ve even planted beans. I think my dad was always convinced they took up too much room or something.. I don’t know, but I’m super happy with them! Tons of beans to come and they are so much fun to pick.

Above is the pot I planted weeks and weeks ago with some lettuce and carrot seeds. It’s my “salad pot”. I’ll have to start plucking lettuce off it’s soon because my original lettuce and spinach plot is reaching the end of its life, and this 90+ degree weather is not helping!

I have somewhere around 20 tomato plants. I have 2 in a Topsy Turvy (works great for me!) and the rest are in my garden. A few of the tomato plants are still youngins’ but that helps to space out all fruit harvesting. The deer haven’t touched anything yet (except the apple tree), but I know they are coming! I also have about 8 pepper plants, but they must be stunted or something. They haven’t grown much in weeks. My great next door neighbor let me have a bunch of his compost (leaves and grass clippings) that have been cooking for years. I spread it around all my plants on this half of my garden and now it looks fabulous! It should help keep some moisture in and make the soil richer.

I think these are black raspberries. They aren’t blackberries and they aren’t normal raspberries. Think raspberry texture with a blackberry color. black raspberries, possibly? I got a small piece of the bush from Nerdboy when we first starting dating. Now my plant is growing better than his! 😉 They are growing great in my garden, which is good and bad. It’s great that they are flourishing, but I also want to get all the berries out of my garden because they take up a bunch of space and they spread!

I took this picture a few days ago. I can’t wait to check them tonight when I get home. I think they are almost ready! 🙂

Lots of green bean plants and lots of beans to pick!

My first squash, green bean, and potato picking of the season! Yahoo! I don’t even like squash or green beans (only like canned ones) but I’m still excited.

Lots of lettuce, spinach and berries! Lovely!
So there we go, more garden pictures! Usually 4th of July is a big turning point for my garden. I usually get my first tomato, blackberry, cucumber, and flourishing squash by then. It looks like we are right on track with the cucumber and squash, but this new variety of blackberry (grew from seeds I got from blackberries I picked at a farm last year) are amazing! They are early growers and have huge berries.

I hope you guys are enjoying your summer! It’s going to be a HOT one this week and our AC was broken all yesterday. Feel free to ask questions or share your garden stories. Garden on, my friends 🙂