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Shirley's Vegetable Garden™

By Shirley Barriger
September

Weeds never take a vacation.....

How wonderful it has been to harvest my home grown vegetables this summer. I hope you are having a great harvest also. I went camping for two weeks in July and forgot to tell the weeds to take a vacation, too. So, I returned home to a garden full of weeds…big ones, too. We had quite a bit of rain while I was gone and that really encouraged the weeds to grow. So what I couldn’t pull out by hand, I cut down with a hand sickle to avoid the weeds going to seed and to avoid a greater mess next year. Fortunately most of the weeds were between the rows and not in the rows due to the weeding I did earlier within the rows.

The string beans, zucchini and summer squash have produced nicely so I have been freezing a lot of them. Zucchini and summer squash grow so fast that I have been busy baking cookies, cake, bread and even zucchini apple pie that doesn’t even have apples in it, just the flavor of apple pie from the cinnamon and sugar. It really tastes like apple pie.

My two granddaughters have also enjoyed harvesting vegetables in their own little garden next to mine. They are keeping their eyes on two large pumpkins that are turning a nice orange color. It won’t be long before they will be able to carve them. I think those two pumpkins will be greatly appreciated since the girls grew them. I hope some of you have been able to include your kids or grand kids in the garden. ‘Hands on learning’ is the best way to teach our children so they can know how to be good gardeners. Good luck with the rest of your summer harvest and the maintenance of your garden.

Read More Shirley's Vegetable Garden™ columns