It’s been awhile since I shared what’s up in the vegetable garden. Deep in the middle of summer, lots is up. As in lots of beautiful vegetables.

Looking back at my last update from the end of June, I’m amazed at how much things have grown. Here’s the tour ’round the ring.

Quadrant #1, where the first three of the five rows of potatoes are ready to be dug.

The raspberries along half the centre axis. I think that the black raspberries (the mess on the left) will be coming out to be replaced with either more raspberries or something entirely different. We have enough growing wild around the farm that we don’t need them in the garden too. And they do not seem amenable to being tamed.

Quadrant #2 which continues to be weed central as there’s nothing planted here beyond asparagus and grapes in the perimeter beds. I actually broke down and mowed this section last weekend. Let’s pretend I’m a really sophisticated gardener and we’re intentionally letting this section lie fallow this year, okay?

Quadrant #3, which also continues to be quite weedy. However, no mowing is happening here, as this is home to our watermelon, which have totally taken off (more on this below).

The other half of the centre axis is our squash A-frame. The vines are climbing! I’m very excited that the trellis seems to be working. We have baby butternuts, acorn squash and gourds.

Quadrant #4 is the best looking, especially after Matt spent hours last weekend pulling weeds. It’s home to our very bushy tomatoes, peppers, beans and more zucchini.

I tried to pick a few highlights to zoom in on a little more. A few is hard, as I’m super excited about everything.

Most exciting is our watermelon. As in we actually have watermelon! They’re about the size of softballs right now, so they’re not quite watermelons, but they’re on their way.

Another vegetable that is exciting just by its presence is our yellow bush beans. Last year all of four plants sprouted. This year we have a whole row and each plant is loaded with beans and blossoms. We’re going to have more than enough beans to freeze for the winter.

Also on their way are our Sicilian Saucer tomatoes. I picked up these seeds on a whim, so I’m not sure what to expect. The blossoms were huge, befitting the “saucer” name. We have some catfacing on the bottom of the fruits, which I’ve learned is common with big tomatoes. The fruits aren’t saucer-size yet, but I feel like they’re on their way to being quite large.

The plants that I’m watching most closely are our grapes. A few of the vines have finally reached the top of the fence, and some tendrils have even started to wind themselves around the wires.

These are the highlights, but there are a few lowlights.

I planted the bunching onions in the raised bed, which are filled with the dirt we bought this spring. The onions did not like the dirt at all. They’ve looked like blades of grass ever since they sprouted back in June. Last weekend we transplanted those wee little sprouts into the main section of the garden. They’re already looking perkier.

A few of the raspberries have been hit by Japanese Beetles. The damage hasn’t been too bad, and we have so many canes that I’m not miffed to sacrifice a few leaves. However, that doesn’t mean I’m not on a campaign against the beetles. It only took me a couple of days to get over my squeamishness at the crunch they make when I crush them.

This one may not be a lowlight, but some of the tomatoes that we purchased as sprouts are growing oddly. The plants are all the same type, but the fruit are all different sizes. Everything from the size of a marble to the size of a pingpong ball.

And then we have a few plants where the stems that support the trusses have taken a turn and branched up into “suckers.” You can see the stem looping around and up in the photo below. I’ve never seen this before. Have you?

One final highlight that I have to share. As I was photographing the garden, I came across this guy in the watermelons. A frog in the garden is a good omen, right?

What we’re loving most is eating the garden–the vegetables and fruits only, no frogs. We have so much desire to cook in the summer, and our meals are so fresh and full of variety.

How is your garden growing? What fresh produce are you enjoying this summer?

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Raspberries are a pretty easy crop to grow in my opinion. Last year I transplanted a whole bunch of raspberry canes from my parents’ garden to ours. The canes have grown and spread like crazy.

This year, the object of the game is to contain the canes–a little bit. Raspberry canes don’t bear fruit until their second year, so the first year is all about letting the canes grow… and grow… and grow.

The taller the canes grow, the more likely they are to fall over. A trellis can help to keep them upright and also keep the row a manageable width.

Here’s how Matt and I made the trellis for our berries.

We started with metal T-posts. We happened to have a large quantity courtesy of past owners–free materials, yay! And I liked that the metal won’t rot like wood.

The posts were about 7 feet long. Matt hammered them into the ground leaving about 5 feet sticking up. We used six posts, three on each side, for our rows, which are about 18 feet long. The width of the rows is 2 feet.

Then I strung wire through the holes on the T-posts. There are three rows of wires, each about 16 inches apart.

At the final corner I doubled the wires back and twisted them around themselves.

The raspberries grow between the wires staying nice and straight. About once a week, I walk along the row and make sure all of the growing canes are tucked inside the wires.

Any canes that sprout outside the row can be transplanted to inside the boundaries.

So far, we’ve had just a handful of berries, as we only started our canes last year. Our plants, though, have become thick and lush. With our trellis in place, we’re set to have a great crop of raspberries next year.

Have you picked any raspberries this year? Do you grow raspberries? Have you ever built a raspberry trellis?

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Much progress has been made on the garden. You might notice in the photo above that we have a gate! And it’s not just propped in place. It’s actually on hinges, and it swings and everything. It’s only been 10 months since I built the gate. Not at all unreasonable to wait that long to fully protect the garden, right?

Inside, things are slowly filling in. I’m trying to remind myself to be patient and things will grow… eventually.

Let me take you on a tour of around our garden as it’s growing right now.

Quadrant one is our most well-established. It is home to five rows of potatoes–three red, one Kennebec and one Russian Blue. Although I really could have done two Russian Blues given how many we had and how much space there is in this quadrant. There are also three zucchini plants. Then in the perimeter beds there are onions, beets, carrots and a selection of herbs.

I’m a bit disappointed in the onions. They are spindly, some of the ends are brown, and I’m not confident that they’re going to size up. But I keep watering them and sowing new rows for my attempt at succession planting. (The beets in the background are doing excellent, however).

Quadrant two is bordered by our perennial crops: raspberries, grapes and asparagus. The middle is empty however, and we don’t have plans to plant anything here. One of the things I’ve realized is that we can only handle so much with this large vegetable garden.

The asparagus isn’t that much farther along than the onions, but I’m beyond excited by it. I’m trying to grow asparagus from seeds, and I thought I wasn’t going to be successful. These seeds took so long to sprout. Almost three weeks. I thought it wasn’t going to happen. So these little tiny ferns are tremendous progress.

Quadrant 3 has a lot of growth, but not the kind I want. Welcome to weed central. Ugh. There are some watermelon seedlings in here, but I’m not sure they’ll last that much longer without some defense. The outside edge has our sunflowers which are growing incredibly.

Quadrant four is slightly better than weed central, but not by much. This is our first year planting this half of the garden, so it’s taking more effort to clear out the weeds on this side. In this quarter we have two rows of tomatoes (under the wood frames), one of peppers, one of beans and three more zucchini plants. The outer edge has some more herbs, more sunflowers and our hollyhocks.

You’ve caught glimpses of the centre axis already, but here’s the view that I’ve been working towards for the past two years. A long look between our two rows of raspberries, through the squash A-frame and out to the back fields.

On Monday I posted about vision. The vision for this vegetable garden has been a long time coming, but it’s oh so wonderful to see it come to life.

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In case you haven’t heard, a vegetable garden was my biggest home goal for this year. Well, I am officially declaring the garden a success.

We did our last harvest a week or so ago.

And just in time too. Frost is a regular occurrence now, and the plants have all shriveled up. They’re not producing any more produce. But they were pretty productive for most of the season.

Especially the squash.

I knew the squash was going to be plentiful. When it was time to pick, I didn’t even consider a basket. I got out the wheelbarrow.

This is the first load. Please note that there are still numerous pumpkins hanging on the fence, just waiting to be picked.

The second load.

The grand tally is 37 pumpkins, 39 butternuts and about 70 acorns. We donated several of them to Thanksgiving dinners on both side of our family, and then brought them as party favours for all of the guests. We’re also eating them ourselves, of course.

This is the corner of my dining room where they are currently living. Lovely dinner party decor, aren’t they? Apparently, there was a reason I didn’t toss the cartons that held the fireplace stone.

The cartons also came in handy for the rutabagas.

Matt was joking when he suggested we plant rutabagas. Neither of us knew what they were. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten one. I know I’ve never cooked with one. Seeing a carton full of these large vegetables was a bit daunting.

We strategically picked the rutabagas the week before Thanksgiving. Then we divvied them up, and Matt and I took two-thirds of them to work. Thankfully, many of our coworkers were enthused by the idea of adding rutabagas to their Thanksgiving menus, and we were able to get rid of most of them.

I did cook one for our own Thanksgiving dinner. The recipe called for one large rutabaga “about 1 1/2 pounds.” My version of a large rutabaga weighed in at 3 pounds–double the recipe. Thankfully, we liked the rutabaga, so we didn’t mind that we had a lot of it.

The other star of our harvest were Matt’s potatoes. We had just three plants, but they produced some beautiful taters.

There were some big ones, some medium ones, and some wee-tiny potato-lets.

That big guy came in at more than a pound all on his own. In total, we had 6 pounds 4 ounces of potatoes.

And they taste amazing. I definitely notice a difference between our fresh homegrown ones and the grocery store. (This may be cruelty to vegetables).

The only things that did not do well–and I’ve talked about this before–are our poor peppers. We had 8 red pepper plants and 12 (supposedly) jalapenos, all of which did pretty much nothing. We got probably about 6 peppers total, and they all resembled misshapen green bell peppers.

The one pepper that started to turn red shriveled up and fell off. And note how the plant is blossoming again even though fall leaves are on the soil around it? These guys just could not get it together.

Our final harvest included those last few peppers, a small bushel of tomatoes, half a basket of beets, and of course, more zucchini. Those things just kept coming.

Not pictured are two more baskets of Matt’s onions.

Oh, and we grew a puppy too!

The last of the tomatoes and peppers are now on the dining room table, ripening the rest of the way in front of our best window.

It’s so great to have finally fulfilled my dream of having our own garden and growing our own food. And it’s something that Matt and I both really enjoyed–I love projects that happen like that.

We have more to do to wrap up the garden for the season. I’m already full of plans for next year. But for now, I can pretty much check vegetable garden off the 2015 wishlist.

Did you have a vegetable garden this year? How did your garden grow? Do you have any favourite squash or pumpkin recipes to share?