What's growing in my garden right now?

 my asiatic lilies

  baby pumpkin

  day lily

 asiatic lily

daisies

day lily

day lily

echinacea

garlic

Some grapes- yay!

Why are most of my grape plants dying off?

green beans

tomato plants

clematis

asiatic lilies

  peaches

pumpkins

purple day lilies

red asiatic lilies

Harvest Monday - October 3rd

I planted this bare root peach tree last year in the spring.  It took forever for it to sprout a single leaf but it finally did.  This year it had gorgeous blooms all over it but I honestly wasn't expecting anything else to happen. Maybe you remember this photo? Or this photo? They were about the size of golf balls and I had no idea how much they would grow.  Now that I know, I will remove buds that grow too close.  

The two smaller peaches really aren't that big but they'll be yummy on vanilla ice cream as our treat for Family Home Evening tonight.

My daughter picked the first peach.

My son picked the next peach - his was the one that was up top but he got it. 

I picked the last and largest peach.  My daughter wanted to know why.  I told her it was because I bought the tree, planted the tree, watered the tree, added fertilizer around the tree, and gave it its first pruning.  It's nice to add some fruit to all the veggies around here. And my children are excited about eating fresh fruit tonight.

This peach is considered the ultimate canning peach.  The skins slip off easily when blanched. And you can store them for up to 7 years! Not that ours ever last that long - maybe 10 months.

Check out this week's harvest at Daphne's Dandelions.

Harvest Monday - September 19th

Right now I have 3 peaches on my peach tree.  Because it's still so new I still purchase my Early Elberta peaches in Brigham City at Grammy's.  We purchsed 1 1/2 bushels. They even gave me a 5% off card to use anytime I go there. The peaches are bigger this year than I ever remember.  They need to sit for a few days. My house smells amazing. My husband is looking forward to eating them - like every morning on his cereal or with ice cream once in a while.  

We also picked a 1/2 bushel of apples at my mom's house.  She gave me the square foot garden off her back porch since they are getting ready to sell the house.  It's 16 feet long and fits with about a foot to spare in my row garden.  I'll share a photo when I get the soil added in. 

The other day when I grilled the tomatoes I cut the core out of the heirlooms and saved the seeds in this bowl. I've never saved tomato seeds before.  I've saved onion seeds but that's it.  I think it's something great to learn.  

Then I put them in this metal strainer of mine and ran luke warm water over them.  

Then I spread them out on paper towels.  When they were nearly dry I scraped them off with a spoon and put them on some old plastic ware lids to finish drying.  I really want to see if I can get a few to grow before I freak out in the spring because nothing is growing.  And I'm excited to make a few seed packets in Adobe Illustrator - uhm and peach canning labels. I saved the Red Beefsteak and the Pink Brandywine.

3 peaches

I'm really surprised we have any peaches this year but we have 3.  The peach tree has been in the ground for almost 2 years now. My next assignment is to figure out how to prune the tree this fall.  Any suggestions for where to go on this? I did check the USU extension but it mostly had info for the first year.  

  Okay, so there are two in this photo.  The other one is a ways up.  They are small.  But I am just happy to be growing some fruit. Especially because we preserve 50 bottles of diced peaches each fall.  Eventually I hope to get a few bottles preserved from this tree. My husband eats them pretty quick.  He has to have something to sweeten his cereal in the morning.  He calls it horse food.