Holy Cow, Batman!

Every year I plant a fairly large garden and every year it produces basically enough to eat from all summer.  Most of what I put by comes from the generosity of friends.  It's frustrating because I have visions of tons of vegetables, enough to get us through the winter.  I want to be able to grow enough to live on in order to save money in this area.

This year for the very first time ever a friend donated a truckload of compost from cow manure.  Wow!!!  What a difference.  I planted three weeks ago and my plants are giant size.  This is the first time that I actually have tomatoes on the vine in the middle of June.

Big full, beautiful heads of lettuce.





Tomato plants loaded with blossoms.



Potatoes growing well in buckets.



Beans & squash growing too.





The only thing that makes me sick to my stomach is that there is a very large woodchuck who found a way under the fence.  I caught him today sitting in the middle of the cabbage patch, eating it.  Three heads of beautiful lettuce were gone, as well as all the leaves from an entire row of beans.  Apparently, he was grazing his way through the garden all afternoon as the plants were fine this morning.

I guess manure not only grows large plants but attracts other creatures as well!  It's definitely a thrifty way to increase your produce production.  It cost me nothing and yet, I can see the benefits already!