Vegetable Garden Update: What We Planted And Love This Summer

Today I am sharing everything we planted in this summer in this vegetable garden update!

I am so excited to be sharing this vegetable garden update blog! Last year we finally planted a vegetable garden after years of dreaming about planting one. We learned so much from that first garden, and you can read all about it here. The most important thing we learned, however, is to only plant what you will actually eat haha

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I know that probably seems pretty obvious, but in our fervor to start our own veggie garden, we were thinking more about our ability to successfully plant and grow a vegetable than the actual vegetables were were planting. Plus, we had been given seeds from friends and neighbors and my frugality generally gets the better of me when starting on a new project.

Vegetable Garden Update: What We Planted Last Year

Last year we planted:

• A variety of tomato plants on a trellis
• Pole beans
• Cucumbers
• Zucchini 
• Yellow squash
• Sugar snap peas
• A variety of peppers
• Okra
• Collard greens
• Romain lettuce 
• Radishes
• Carrots

Generally, we really enjoyed eating most of the vegetables we planted that first year! It was so much fun to grow our own food, but we found okra, collard greens and radishes were just not something we used regularly in recipes or to snack on. I knew for this growing season that we would really want to pay special attention to growing vegetables we would eat and use every day.

I also wanted to avoid growing vegetables that we had a lot of pest problems with, such as collard greens. We found that little critters really enjoyed munching on them, and constantly had quality issues with little holes in the leaves.

I knew for our vegetable garden update that we would give our squash and zucchini more space to grow because they really overtook the space they were planted in.

We also added some sturdier cages for our tomato plants, as we had issues with our cages not being strong enough to hold them up last year.

What We Planted This Year

For our second planting, we knew we wanted to replant tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, snap peas, peppers, lettuce and carrots. My four boys loved to eat these veggies right off the vines, and I loved that they were eating organic, healthy veggies as snacks!

However, for this year’s vegetable garden update, we wanted to try our hand at few new vegetables and herbs:

• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Sage
• Lavender
• Potatoes

We also tried out strawberries, but didn’t have much success there. We were able to grow a few small ones, but between bugs and little critters, we never could quite get a bountiful harvest.

We also once grew pumpkins behind my shed, but I am hesitant to plant them in my garden because I have heard they can easily take over.

Thankfully this year our garden was very successful in everything we grew! I actually grew a little too much lettuce and had to give some away so it would’t go to waste. The snap peas are always a huge hit with our boys, and they eat them all summer long while playing outdoors.

Next year I would love to try spinach, onions and garlic, as well as some more herbs like basil and thyme. I am also debating on adding sweet potatoes to the vegetable garden next year.

If you have had success planting any of these, please give me any tips and tricks you have below in the comments!

What kind of mulch do you use? How much watering and moisture is necessary? Which vegetables have you found to be the most drought tolerant? I am always eager to learn and improve my gardening skills!

Overall, I highly recommend starting your own vegetable garden. Like I said in last year’s post, the hardest part of gardening is just getting started!

Reach out to family and friends for help and advice, and use online resources for any additional guidance you may need. There is so much information out there, and I am constantly googling gardening questions haha

I love that being a homemaker has allowed me to pursue this dream of mine. I know it may sound silly, but homemaking has really allowed me to explore so many interests and passions. If you haven’t yet, I would love to have you sign up for my free mini homemaking course below for more homemaking encouragement.

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