2016 Gardening Recap

As the last few raspberries on our plants are ripening this week (yes, it's November and we are still getting berries from our plants!), I reflect back on what a fun time I had gardening this year. It was so enjoyable and rewarding and I just loved it. One of my favorite things was going out to the garden each morning to check on it - see what was growing, what was ripening, and on the days we were lucky, what was going to be our morning snack. The kids loved it, too. I think Tyler ate 90% of our snap peas, and Bradley couldn't shove the raspberries in his mouth fast enough. Kylee's favorite was the sweet, juicy cantaloupe.

I am thrilled with how well our garden did overall, but I definitely have things I will change next year... like our tomato and pepper plants didn't do that great this year. When it seems like everyone else had these big beautiful plants, mine were wimpy. Needless to say, I am going to spend some time this winter researching to see how to get the best production out of my garden next year. I will be making my garden plan early! I've also decided that I think I'd like to be a Master Gardener. Gardening truly brought me joy this year, and I'd love to have more knowledge and continue to "grow and cultivate" this new passion of mine. I am thinking of starting the program next fall!

On a related note, I was also able to get some canning in this year! I seriously love walking into my pantry and seeing the shelves lined with beautiful home-canned jars. I canned peaches, pears, applesauce, apple butter, apple pie filling, two different kinds of grape juice, tomatoes, and salsa. Hopefully my jars will hold me over until we have fresh produce from our garden once again :-)