Not Licked Yet

After feeling like our little experiment this year was a big fat flop (other than the eggs that we have in abundance) I was looking toward next year. Taking my lessons from this year's failures and making plans for doing better next year. I had really just about given up on this year; when we went on vacation we didn't even bother having anyone water the garden because we thought it was too far gone.

But lo and behold plants are amazing, resilient things and I am flat out amazed that this year will yield far and beyond what we'd originally thought. We returned from vacation and realized that many of these amazing heirloom varieties were holding on for dear life and would likely produce. Since then we've hauled water like crazy and had some rain recently (that made all the difference, there's just nothing like actual RAIN). I went out to the garden yesterday and was exceedingly excited to find:

Several little baby yellow squash.

An entire row of purple beans are doing well and flowering!
Darran informed me that purple beans turn green when you cook them.
I informed him that we would eat them raw then, because we are eating purple beans!

We picked this, our first zucchini ever on 4 Acres. I sort of felt it needed
memorialized somehow. Can you bronze a zucchini? Guess we'll just eat it.

THIS I was most excited to find. Like, just won the lottery excited. Really.
Our first ever spaghetti squash. I've never even heard of anyone growing spaghetti
squash around here. Maybe they do? I've never seen it though. We love spaghetti squash.
Ya, this little thing right here was nothing short of miraculous to me. Guess you had to be there?

Will we grow most of our own food for the winter ahead as we'd hoped? No. But we are grateful that through this far from perfect, hectic, hot and dry, crazy summer we will have a pretty good first harvest here at 4 Acres.

Mostly, we are grateful for the priceless family time and the adventures we've had while trying. And... 

Summer's not over and we're not licked yet!