2026, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Garden Update

21 Comments

This was our first veggie garden in our new home and our first attempt using raised beds. I am happy to report that things are working out well. We had no weeds and no garden pests.

Our raised beds are 3 feet tall, 3 feet wide, and 6 feet long. We planted tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and chard. The chard has been a real success. It is a white chard variety.

To date I have froze 7 lbs of leaves and made a Provencal chard and zucchini tart. The leaves will be used in an Italian pie of greens from The Splendid Table. The chard shares its space with basil.

I bought more pint jars last weekend for more pesto.

The eggplants have done well. We made Eggplant Parmigiano and also roasted and froze several eggplants for use in soup and curry. The leaves are enormous. The eggplants share a space with roma tomatoes and serrano peppers, King of the North red bell peppers, and an Italian frying pepper.

We planted Cherokee Purple, German Johnson, and Roma tomatoes in the third bed . They are doing well,

We tied up and trimmed them after I took their picture. I expect we will have a load of ripe tomatoes in about a month.

We plan to get two or three more raised beds next year. There wasn’t enough room for spinach, and I think we could swing a butternut squash bed as well. I am also happy to report that the pie plant (aka rhubarb) has taken nicely to its new digs.

How is your garden growing? What would you do with too many eggplants and hot peppers? Is it pie plant or rhubarb in your family?

21 thoughts on “Garden Update”

  1. Always rhubarb, always will be. Never had luck growing eggplant, so never had too many. Peppers are easy to chop up and freeze.

    I am pea green with envy at your beautiful raised beds!

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  3. Rhubarb – hadn’t heard “pie plant” till here.

    Too many eggplants and peppers? I think I’d send them to you! I used to make ratatouille (there’s an oven version that might be in Kitchen Congress), but Husband doesn’t like eggplant any more so we stopped planting.

    We have yellow peppers that are doing well, have cored & frozen 3 bags of roma tomatoes so far. Yukon golds are ready, but not very big and kind of scaly…

    Back later.

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  4. I love rhubarb, but I can’t plant anything in the lawn here. I doubt rhubarb would want to grow in the patio area due to the poor soil underneath 6” of rock and a layer of black plastic. I’m willing to try if anyone thinks it would work. I know it doesn’t like containers. I’ve always called it rhubarb, although I’ve heard people call it pie plant. I’ve also heard people call burdock “wild rhubarb”, which it is not.

    I have rainbow Swiss chard planted with a couple rows of red carrots (can’t remember what they’re named), and basil. Italian parsley, curly parsley, marigolds, nasturtiums, and chives are also in that bed.

    There are yellow pear tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, nasturtiums, marigolds, and bell peppers in the other cedar planter box. That box has delivered wonderful little yellow pear tomatoes, but the slicing tomatoes and bell peppers have some kind of blossom end rot. I think I’ll still get a few slicers and maybe 2-3 bell peppers out of it.

    There are some Jelly Bean grape tomatoes, and a lovely purple eggplant in one of the planter boxes. I harvested 3 long, skinny eggplants yesterday. I am going to roast them in the ninja foodie with chunks of red onion. I like them grilled or roasted. That planter box also has lantana and marigolds in it.

    I made some mistakes planting zucchini in a planter box with an Amish paste tomato, some marigold, a lantana, and another flowering vine. The zucchini did amazingly well until it just sucked up all the water and nutrients out of the soil in that box, got fungal, and died last week. I loved having the zucchini with its golden blossoms, but I doubt I’ll plant it again. I just don’t have room.

    My morning glory is large and climbing the privacy wall, but it still hasn’t bloomed. I hope it does. I do think there is some herbicide drift from the lawn care company that is hitting some of my plants.

    I have a sweet grass plant that I kept in a pot and moved from my old place. I wasn’t sure it would survive in the pot, but it did. I’m going to harvest it and make braids someday soon.

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  5. Garden is growing like a weed, but so are the weeds. I got my first tomato back in mid-July. Possibly a record early picking. Other than tomatoes, we just have basil plants and a few other herbs. All are going crazy this summer.

    I don’t grow or care much for hot peppers or eggplant so if I had to have extra, I’d give them away to neighbors or a food shelf.

    Rhubarb all the way. I’ve never heard “pie plant” before today, Renee. Is that a Norwegian (or Danish or Dutch?) thing or something? 😉

    Chris in Owatonna

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  6. Rise and Rhubarb, Baboons,

    My zucchini contracted a fungus, so that was the end of that crop. Otherwise my pots and beds on the deck have required so much water due to the heat, but they are producing. I have both yellow and red cherry tomatoes. The cucumbers and peppers are really producing well. The sweet corn at Untiedts farm stands is superb.

    Where my veggie garden was, I planted Bee Lawn which has thrived. The spot at the back is now a flower garden. The bergamot and hollyhocks took off beautifully. The rest are annuals which are looking great and attracting pollinators. Monarch butterflies and swallowtails are feeding often in the front and the back.

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  11. Bales doing fabulously. I’m in the use of tomatoes as fast as I can phase of the summer. Two Romas, one early girl, one cherry tomato, one Santa grape tomato, one heirloom of some kind of YA chose. Two of the three basil plants have already been harvested. Thyme, chives, poblano peppers and Serrano peppers. The first Serrano pepper wasn’t nearly as hot as I was expecting so that’s good for me.

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