My Edible Rewards

This was not the greatest year for edibles in my garden. First I planted peas and beans and the bunnies ate them. I put up rabbit fencing and planted again. They ate them again. Repeat process two more times. Finally, I have fairy-size plants growing with miniature peas and beans on them. It’s the weirdest thing.

The cucumbers were probably my most successful. I harvested enough for sushi a couple times and made 2 jars of pickles. It was my first time making pickles and Eliot mentioned the pickle episode from The Andy Griffith Show, where no one has the heart to tell Aunt Bea she makes lousy pickles, and even though Eliot swore he thought my pickles were good, truthfully, just like in the episode, they weren’t as good as “store-bought.” Then my cucumbers got some sort of virus where the leaves and stems turned yellow. And any remaining cucumbers were eaten by chipmunks or squirrels. Here's one pre-pickle:

The onions and spinach never came up. The rabbits ate the lettuce and beet leaves. The pepper plants never got that big, although one plant has a few fruits finally forming. The basil did well. Yay! I grew a lettuce-leaf variety which was perfect for tomato sandwiches. Unfortunately most of the sandwiches were made with bought tomatoes. So far I’ve gotten 2 ripe tomatoes (from 6 plants!) and they were good, although not as tasty as last year’s. But I have a lot of green tomatoes, so there's still hope.

Eliot is strongly suggesting sticking to flowers next year. I see his point, but what's life without homegrown tomatoes? And basil to go with them, of course. And I’d like to tweak that pickle recipe, so maybe a few cucumber plants. And dill for the pickles. I didn’t think of that this year and had to buy dill. And now that the rabbit fencing seems to be doing its job, I could probably plant a few peas, too...