Today I put my garden to bed.  With overnight temperatures expected below freezing for several upcoming nights, I decided now was the time to finish gathering my crop and getting it ready for the snow.

I read an article in the paper about a month ago that said people were having a poor crop in their backyard gardens this summer.  Between the heat and little rain, things such as tomatoes just weren't doing as well.  I beg to differ though!  This is the fifth summer I've had a garden, and by far it was my most productive and well producing garden. 

So, what did we do that made this year that made it so much better.  I am not sure.  The only thing that we did differently this year was take down the huge tree that partially shaded the garden.  The canopy in years past was so thin that it let a lot of light in already....so I don't think that had much to do with it.  While my neighbor couldn't get any cucumbers to grow (and her garden is a mere 10 feet from ours), we couldn't pick the cucumbers fast enough. 

So, with that, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking....

In April...after tilling the garden

In June...behind Tabs and James is a growing garden.

Tabs proudly showing off a cucumber almost as big as her!

Taken a few weeks ago.  Luckily I had so much in there that it kept the weeds to a minimum.

My harvest of about 30 cups of carrots.

Another 30 cups of green onions

Approximately 50 cups of tomatoes (this is only about 1/4 of the total amount of tomatoes we picked all summer)

And my most proud moment.  I was FINALLY able to grow not just 1 pumpkin...but 4 of them!  And this is only from one seed that I planted.  (Yes, the one in the back is green, but we'll paint that one for halloween).