Amy Lilley Designs: The Garden, Beginning, Middle and End...

2 things. Wow, it has been a month since my last post and I did not post anything on the blog about this years garden. To close the gap a bit, the last day of the outdoor pool could not have ended any better given the perfect weather that day, and taking in all the hundreds of laps I clocked in by the end of the season, I was grateful beyond words. As one of the lifeguards said, 'You have just been a swimming machine this summer!'. Best thing I could have heard. So, to back track, to around Memorial Day. I bought a 3 tiered raised garden bed KIT. I had to build it. Seemed simple enough, but, as has been stated here before on many other projects, it was more work than anticipated...and it took a ton of soil. With the help of our neighbors, drilling some drainage holes on the floor board we bought to keep the soil in place, and the brand spanking new palettes we found outside of a shop, whose owners said, 'Please, take them off of our hands!' I was on my way.

I bought small heirloom tomatoes, white eggplants, green peppers, strawberries, 6 varieties of basil for eating all summer and then to make pesto to take us to next summer, flat leaf parsley, which we have also been enjoying all summer as well, and dill. The strawberries died almost immediately, replaced them with something else (I forget), and it died, then replaced that with cucumbers which had blight, so that little corner never happened.

That said, I have never had tomatoes grow so fast and with such strength in their stems. They are still blooming, and I have hundreds of them. The white eggplants were beautiful to watch bloom and grow from a lovely purple flower to a baseball sized eggplant. I cut back 10 of them just yesterday and cooked up some eggplant parm. There are ALLOT of seeds in these small guys, so, they can border on bitter. But, the Boys enjoyed it, along with the fresh basil and pesto made from scratch included in the ingredients. It was a great moment in the kitchen, and I froze 7 healthy portions!! I am in the process of dismantling, the large, beautifully weathered terra cotta pots of basil, making pesto like a machine. Last summer I froze 58 4 oz. containers, and so far, as of today, I have 41. The nights have been cool, so time is of the essence. All in all a great garden, yielding a bounty for us as I harvest the haul. I am a grateful little gardener, still busy busy busy, just like the bees who have graced us with their presence all season....