I’ve been seeing posts about the gardening community raving about the harvests.  In the Sprouting Off garden things have been a little slow.  However, there are a few things that are in abundance.

I took this photo on June 14 and was quite excited to get roughly a pint of strawberries.  I picked them after I dropped my son off at the bus just to make sure I was able to actually get strawberries.  After school the children run into the garden and fill their faces with fresh strawberries.  I absolutely love it, but at the time it made my personal strawberry snacks quite limited.

Since I took this photo I’ve harvested another pint (the next day), and then roughly 5 gallons (or more) in subsequent days.  I took a huge bowl to work on Wednesday of last week and then another bowl Thursday.  Derek and Oleg picked another huge bowl on Thursday evening and yesterday Derek and I picked a giant bowl.  The one we picked last night was frozen for later smoothies.  A few weeks ago my husband looked at me and said, “babe, I think we can officially say we have too many strawberries.”  I’m inclined to think he’s correct.  I’m to the point where I’m  going to start selling pints of strawberries along side the road.  People pay big bucks for organic strawberries.

At least I’m getting something from my garden.  Other than lettuce not much has been of harvestable size.  Peas are pitiful, broccoli has been slow (and full of cabbage worms), cabbage is small.

I’ve been waging a war against the cabbage worm.  It seems to be common this season.  I refuse to spray my food so I’ve used predatory nematodes in the beds.  It seems to be working.  I’m noticing less worm activity in the red cabbage.

Despite the cool weather I was able to harvest one decent sized cabbage to use for coleslaw on Sunday.  There were only a few worms to pick out of the base of the plant.

The kid’s garden is also coming along nicely and they begged me to allow them to pick a few broccoli heads.  I indulged them.  They had to pose with their bountiful harvest first though.

Yeah, I instagrammed that one.  As soon as I snapped the photo they asked if they could eat the broccoli.  Children asking for veggies for a snack?  Why yes!  Yes you may have broccoli children!  They decided it was slightly spicy, but deemed it delicious.

I don’t mind the slow growth.  We aren’t inundated with produce quite yet.  I think I may have found the balance of succession planting that gives us enough food to eat, but not so much that it’s going to waste or I’m giving it all away… with the exception of those damn strawberries.

How is your garden growing?