2022 Backyard Vegetable Garden Tour

Come take a peek at what we are growing in our backyard garden this year. Last year we did a size expansion on our large raised bed garden and this year we are loving all the new space. We now have one large 8 x 40 foot raised bed, three 3 x 6 foot beds and two new growing table additions for our 5 gallon buckets which will hold a total of 10 buckets!!!! I think we have finally maximized all of our garden space, so without further ado today I'm sharing what we're growing in our summer garden aka our Happy Place! 

This photo was taken in spring when we planted all of our seedlings and they started popping up. Potatoes were one of the first things we planted. Onions and garlic were planted this past Fall. Everything else we waited until our last frost date to plant which is normally after spring break, but we wait until late March or early April here in North Texas, because Texas weather can sometimes be crazy.  

Here's what were growing in our large (8 x 40 foot) raised bed. 

• Boston Pickling Cucumbers
• Straight Neck Yellow Squash
• Zucchini Squash
• Paul Robeson Tomatoes
• Amish Paste Tomatoes
• San Marzano Tomatoes
• Blue Lake Green Beans (Pole)
• Corn (Kandy Corn) 
• Romaine Lettuce
• Jalapeno Pepper
• Cayenne Peppers
• Green & Red Bell Peppers
• Kenebec Potatoes
• Okra (Late July)
  

3 Smaller 3 x 6 Feet Raised Beds 

• Yellow Georgia Sweet Onions & Green Onions
• Sweet Potatoes 
• Garlic 
  
• Dill 
• Thyme
• Greek Oregano
• Parsley

One of the beds with onions is blocked in this photo by the overflow of the sweet potato leaves.  Sweet potatoes take 4-6 months to grow depending whether they are inground or in a container.  The smaller bed pictured is our herb garden. This year we grew Thyme, Mexican Oregano, Dill and Parsley. I still have plenty of Basil that I preserved from last year, so we did not grow basil this year. 

This was our first year growing sweet potatoes. We started our slips indoors in February using organic Jewel sweet potatoes from whole foods. The slips (tubers) do take awhile to grow so this was a long process. 

Sweet potatoes do not grow like regular potatoes where you plant the whole potato into the ground. Sweet potatoes grow by slips (vine cuttings) sprouted from sweet potatoes then transplanted into the garden. Slips need to be started ahead of time (about 2 months before transplanting) or purchased from a garden store or online. 

The photo above is mid summer and our raised sweet potato bed was twice as full with sweet potato tubers. They just overflowed the bed. .

This year we planted Kenebec potatoes. They seem to do the best for us, so I think we will stick with that variety from here on out. We usually get our seed potatoes from Atwoods or Tractor Supply in early spring. 

As usual my Boston Picklers are doing wonderful and they always yield a big crop. Once those little cucumbers start coming in, I pick about 6-10 a day. I can usually get about 3 batches of pickles (Dill or Bread & Butter) from one season and each batch is about 10 pint size jars! 

This year we grew Blue Lake Pole Beans, but I wasn't impressed with the turn out. We grew pole beans because they produce longer, but we did not get much at all this year. We have better luck growing Contender Stringless Bush Beans. Which is the variety we grew in the Fall and we had a ton of green beans for the year. 

With the pole beans we ended up with more green leaves than we did beans. 

This was our first year that we had an amazing tomato crop! In years past out tomatoes just didn't do well at all. We are not sure why but we did change to a different variety and they are my top favorites now. We grew Paul Robeson, Amish Paste, and San Marzano tomatoes. By the end of our growing season we yielded give or take about 50lb's of tomatoes all together. We grew the Paul Robeson by seed and the remainder were from plants. 

Beautiful sweet and smoky Paul Robeson tomatoes. 

The Amish paste did beautifully. 

Corn falls along the lines of tomatoes for us. We just had a hard time growing them, but this year we harvested corn for the first time. In the past we were able to somewhat grow corn but we have a rodent problem so they usually clean it out before we can pick them. This year we beat them to it. We grow out corn using the block method and have had good luck other than the rodents eating it. 

The block method is works great for smaller spaces and helps for easy pollination. 

We also grew zucchini squash and yellow straight neck squash. Zucchini is hit or miss for us, but the yellow squash is a high yield producer. 

Whew we had jalapenos coming out of our ears! This year we grew them in 5 gallon buckets and they did really well. 

The same with the Bell Peppers. We grew to varieties yellow and green and they did really well in the 5 gallon buckets. 

Every year we try and add something onto our Hobby Farm. For the last couple of years we were increasing the size of our large raised bed, but it is finally as big as we can make it. So this year we built some 5 gallon bucket growing tables which help when the storms roll in to keep the buckets upright and from blowing over. 

We are very happy with the way the tables turned out. We made two tables so we were able to have 10 - 5 gallon buckets to work with. We grew all of our peppers (jalapeno, cayenne and bell peppers) in buckets this year.  

In late July when the corn is harvested we plant okra in it's spot. Okra loves the hot and humid weather so we get a ton of Okra every year. We use the Clemsom Spineless Okra. and have had great luck. This year we were able to save the seeds and grow them for the first time. 

A couple mornings I would check on the garden to find a friend resting in our Okra plants. I don't bother him because he seems to like there and hasn't caused any damage to our garden. I found out Opossums don't cause a threat to gardens, so I sort of look forward to seeing him from time to time. 

Okra does very well in the hot, humid Texas weather. By summers end we harvested about 5 gallon size bags of fresh okra. 

When late summer rolls around and the temps shoot to 100+ degrees it's time to break out the shade cloths. If we did not have a shade cloth set up our garden would burn up. 

We also planted several flowers (pollinator flowers) throughout the garden and not only were they beautiful they did the job and attracted so many bees and butterflies. 

I hope you enjoyed our little garden tour and a peek at what we are growing this year. Be on the look out for our "What we Harvested Post" coming at the end of summer. You can take a peek below at what we planted in our Fall Garden.  

After everything was harvested all that was left was the Okra, so in late September we planted our Fall Garden. We planted Honey Nut Squash, Contender Green Beans, Beets, more Corn. the Okra was still going strong and so was all of our Jalapeno and Bell Pepper Plants. 

Happy Gardening! For posts gardening posts check out our gardening archives! 

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