Urban Farm {August}

Holla friends! Baby and I are back at you with another urban farm update!!! Our gardens are in flourish mode right now! We have been getting a decent regular harvest out of them, which is awesome! Tonight I am making chicken with risotto,  using chard and kale from the garden! It saves so much at the grocery store on vegetables and they taste SO much better! On with the photos and updates!

First up, we have... something that's not in the raised beds?! That's right, these are FREE pumpkin plants that I rescued from our compost bin! A couple months ago when I was struggling with my tomatoes (more on that in a minute), I decided to add some of our homemade compost around the tomatoes for a nutrient boost. When I opened the bin, I found two pumpkin plant sprouts! Last year I just tossed our whole pumpkins into the bin and thought nothing of it! Well circle of life friends, here are the next generation of pumpkins, growing among the rocks in our backyard. They are thriving, and I hope we get a couple pumpkins off them by the time Halloween rolls around!

On to the Tomatoes!!! 

After my woes of last month, tons of flowers and no fruit, the tides have turned on tomatoes at our house! As mentioned above, I supplemented my soil with our compost, and hand pollinated my flowers. Say what?! Thats right, I went from flower to flower on my tomato plants with a teeny tiny paint brush and distributed the pollen myself, since our bee population is down this year. And it worked! And I keep getting more and more fruit! I am amazed, I think my hand pollination jump started the process, but I also helped Mother Nature out by planting some bee/butterfly (aka pollinators, my BFF's) attracting plants around my yard. Anything to get those bugs out and about! So far so good!

This is the raised bed on the right. Everything is in giant mode, and I am so happy I could burst! I have two baby zucchinis on the plant in the left there, and my giant tomatoes are happy in the back row!

This is the left of the two raised beds, which was planted a bit earlier so things are huge! That brussel sprout in the front right dominates this box visually, but everything is doing splendidly!
Here is an above view of the same bed.

In the front left there we have a single cucumber plant which is producing heavily after a very slow and rocky start to life! We are cutting the cukes early to pickle for cornichons (tarragon pickles), which are the hubs favorite!

And in closing, I will leave you with an adorable photo of my dogs of course, my four legged children. For those who are new in following, Cash is the boxer/pitbull mix, he will be two at the end of the month. Sammy is the chow/newfoundland mix and he turned 8 in June.

These boys have my heart!

Hope everyone is enjoying these last few weeks of summer and the bounties that come along with it!