Success!

After a couple of fruitless summers we found the right place for a vegetable garden.  In 2011 it got too much shade and not enough water.  Last year I constructed a dolly based mobile unit that was designed to be shifted around depending on the sun-shade-sprinkler combo.  It failed miserably.

This year, on the advice of a neighbor, we chose a spot that got morning sun and stood a good chance of benefiting from our sporadic summer rain.  Burned (literally) from last years debacle, we planted only a few tomato plants, some leftover strawberry plants and a solitary squash.  Well, the tomato plant has grown to amazon proportions with loads of flowers - although strangely no fruit yet.  The squash has turned rampant and has several nice looking yellow offspring.  Both the tomato and the squash contrived to crowd out the strawberry plants, they have disappeared.

 

The apple tree had its usual abundance of fruit, which I picked and unceremoniously threw away.  The apples are sweetish but seem to have a lot of, how do you say, tenants.  Unlike last year,  when I placed the large trash can full of apples out by the curb on garbage day, this time I situated the can a little further back from the street.  See last summer some-overserved yahoo in a pickup came barreling down the road at 3am in his pickup and sideswiped the harvest.  We spent about an hour cleaning up the mess by the light of the moon. It is amazing how far an apple will roll...

The peach tree had a bumper crop, we picked the best of the bunch and brought them inside to ripen.  The missus made an excellent peach pie.

So while the 2013 vegetable garden is small - it was an experiment after all - critically it is in a productive spot and can be expanded nicely next spring.