Garden 2023

One of my favourite things to do this time of year is grab a large bowl, a pair of scissors, and spend some time harvesting goodies in my garden/retreat.

I try to make my harvest as appealing as possible, so that when I bring it inside and show Linda she gets her fill of both beauty and bounty.

After we planted our tomatoes this year, it was cloudy and rainy for weeks. The starts did not achieve the beauty or bounty we experienced last year. 

We have had plenty of tomatoes to eat, but there will not be enough to do any canning this year. A bummer, especially when looking at the price of store bought canned tomatoes these days.

Our garlic, however, turned out great. So easy to grow, and so much better than the tired stuff in the stores that must endure being shipped thousands of kilometres.

After first frost, which hasn't happened yet, we will be planting out the best bulbs for next year's crop. 

First frost in our location occurs some time between mid-September and mid-October, so it could be any time now.

That will be the beginning of Garden 2024 already.

This may gross some readers out, but it was our best year ever for cilantro, which has been accenting our Dahl and rice, as well as making it into our salsa and burritos. 

Cilantro is a love/hate thing. For us it is love. Especially since it self-seeded all over the place, and all we had to do was harvest it all summer and into the fall.

Besides our garlic in the herb and spice category, we also had success with dill, summer savoury and basil. 

We used all of our basil to make walnut pesto. We frozen it in ice cube trays, then dumped into two large freezer bags. We will use it for pasta and pizza this winter.

Overall, it was not our best garden year ever, but there are always surprises when growing a garden, like the winter squash that grew in our compost pile.

And with the price of food still going up, a garden, regardless of the results, is increasingly looking like the thing to do.

How did you garden grow?