Goodbye, summer garden! Hello, winter crops! Ha. I use “crops” loosely like I’m a farmer or something. First, I should note, that my backyard smells like manure. Its a real treat. Kind of takes me back to living in Sonoma County with all the dairies around. While I was in San Diego for Mari’s bachelorette weekend, Henry decided to rip out all the half dead summer stuff and go nuts. He bought a ton more vegetables, soil, chicken manure, and this rad planter box below. That spot used to house an ugly bush that Henry also ripped out himself, and now the spot looks respectable again. The planter box is super cute and I’m guessing was pretty easy to assemble. (Knowing my husband’s DIY skills plus two kids running around.)
The new set up.
An artichoke and the three pumpkin plants above that. I would have thought the pumpkins would have taken off by now, so we’re iffy on those guys right now.
Rows of different lettuces.
Our garlic has sprouted! So excited for this one. I want to plant 20 more.
Red leaf lettuce.
Mustard spinach. Isn’t it pretty? I’m almost tempted to put some into the flower beds as filler.
More lettuce and arugula. The far left row is toast. Apparently, romaine lettuce is hard to transplant. 
The tomatoes are hanging on. Looking tired though. I’m sure in the text few weeks, they’ll end up in the compost. We still have a few of the baby Sungolds growing. Chloe actually gobbles those up. She points at them and says, “Ball!”
This guy is asparagus. I had no idea their leaves looked so ferny. I thought these were carrots at first. I LOVE asparagus.
At the base of the tee-pee are more beans. They should climb and cover the bamboo.
And this picture is of the 4 Japanese pumpkins that randomly started growing in our garden this summer. They are a very white-washed orange color and about the size of a butternut squash. I’m thinking about displaying them on the porch and then cooking them up for some homemade pumpkin puree. I hear they are supposed to be kind of sweet. Next to it, is my basil crop. I got about 4 packed cups of basil off the plant. I left a little bit on there just to see if it would keep producing. I took that haul and made my all-time fave….PESTO. Recipe here. Its exponentially better than store bought.
Those 4 cups got us 7 servings of sauce and I can’t wait to slap it on some pasta! I froze them in the plastic containers I used to use for baby food. That should easily last us until next summer’s basil plant. I miss making baby food, actually. It used to be fun having an excuse to load up at the farmer’s market and get crackin’ in the kitchen. A batch of homemade apple sauce just might be in your future 🙂 Mmmmm. Hey, Fall…How you doin’?