At Least Something Grew

I know I said I would post about our weekend getaway next, but then I went out to our garden, and I have to share what was there.

We have had years past were we have had quite the bountiful harvest from our backyard garden.  I wouldn't claim that I have a green thumb by any stretch, but we have eaten food that was grown in our own backyard.  I simply bought seed, put it in the ground in straight rows, and watered.  To me it's amazing that anything happens at all, really.

After the past two summers, I would say, my gardening strategy may need a little refining.  Last year, I blamed it on our unusually cool and wet summer.  I mean, plants do need the sun in order to grow, right?  This summer, we have had great temps, lots of sunshine, plenty of rain (up until this past month at least), and we still came up  short.  We ate off of our bean plants only three times this year when it is typical for us to have to give them away we have so many.  We got exactly NO cucumbers, and I was SO looking forward to them. Our snap peas fed us twice, and we grew about six or seven zucchinis.  I can't even bring myself to talk about the tomatoes and the peppers.  You see, I have high expectations for those things.  I mean, I buy them already half way grown.  All I have to do is transfer them to the ground, and they do the rest.  Now that I have stopped watering the garden and basically given up on it this year, we have 3 small tomatoes and have collected seven peppers (considering how many pepper plants I have, this is really nothing).  I'm telling ya, I had thrown in the towel for the garden this year.

But then, THEN!  There were the carrots.  Whatever causes everything else to do horribly, apparently does great things for carrots.

Round One:

I had hopped outside to pick a few carrots for a pot roast I was making for dinner.  Yup!  Those did the trick.

Round two came yesterday when I thought a couple of carrot sticks would go great with the Turkey Joes I had made for dinner.

I think it's safe to say, we had enough for a few carrot sticks each.

Anyone have any carrot recipes they would like to pass along?