The Veggie Garden in August

With the crazy busyness of the reunion, I neglected to show Lyle's finished vegetable garden.

Shame on me, cause it's pretty darn cool.

This is the largest of the 3 garden entrances, the only one that required 2 gates.  It leads to the compost bins and the strawberry patch.

 The raised concrete beds were worth every bit of effort and are brimming over with herbs and veggies.

Lyle's good friend, Forrest, was our concrete mentor and spent many long hours helping Lyle.  

Only 3 months ago, when I wrote about our messy progress (and before Lyle built the grape arbor), those same beds looked like this.  Quite a difference.

The brick pathways are a big improvement over the weedy dirt.

It's been an unusually hot summer in the northwest and everything's thriving.

  For the past several nights, we've eaten almost exclusively from our garden.  Even so, we're giving away tomatoes and potatoes and zucchini left and right.

I think I need to learn how to can.

Like today.

Lyle washes the produce off in his outdoor sink and then dumps the sludge that goes into the bucket into the compost bins..... 

or we give it to the willing-to-eat-anything goats.

Nothing yet from the grape vine, but it's in the works. 

The smallest entrance to the vegetable garden is the gate near the barn door--the barn door that is now locked thanks to our weed whacker thief,

but the barn cats can still come and go.

I love how the brick walkway curves around the barn.  

We planted some Little Lime hydrangeas and azaleas.

A concrete step (with a ramp in the middle) leads to the upper level of the garden.

The lower level has enough space for a little patio with a bench on one side and a cafe table and chairs on the other.

On the barn, it took many years for the climbing hydrangea to finally bloom, but it's now as consistent as Old Faithful.  

Eight years ago, you could barely see it at the bottom of the barn, but it will soon head over the rooftop and creep around the chicken coop (the chicken coop that was non-existent 8 years ago).  It's not a vine that packs a huge WOW factor, but has kind of a quiet elegance.  

It's one of my very favorite things we've ever planted.

 This year I tried a new vine on the front of the barn--solanum crispum, or a Chilean potato vine.   It had a prolific bloom in the spring, and now is on it's second, more modest bloom.  

Adorable little purple flowers with yellow centers.

    

The second arbor is near the barn and heads down to the pasture.

It's a veggie garden that can easily feed our family of 7....

.....and then some!

So, if you're hankering for some veggies, stop by and help yourself.

Unless you're the weed whacker thief.

You've already helped yourself plenty.