A Chef's Garden

Gardening is what is up these days. Matt, Cesar and I put a lot of hours and blisters into making a wonderful vegetable garden for us in the back yard of our lovely Colorado home. What a rewarding thing to do for people who enjoy nearly instant gratification for their hard work. Do a lot of hard works in the beginning and your efforts will be rewarded with ease of maintenance and lots of eats throughout the growing season.

The first scene pictured here is what we started with. Well, almost what we started with. This is in fact half way through the construction process. This layout was originally just a rock feature in the back yard, an extension of the pink rock you see below the Aspen trees. It is about late February or early March in Colorado. Matt, Cesar and I put a lot of back breaking work into moving all of the rock, tilling, de-rocking, tilling, fertilizing, tilling, composting, tilling, sanding and tilling. Do you notice a trend? Tilling good. As a rule in the growing season of Colorado, never put a plant in the ground till Mothers Day. Our first plants went in the ground a week before.


Here is where all of your hard work in the beginning pays off. This is Matt taming the OOC (Out Of Control) Pineapple Sage. This plant is a very healthy grower. From mother’s day till now, late July, that plant has grown from seedling to about two feet in diameter and a foot tall solid bush of beautiful leaves. In the foreground are the squash and zucchini plants. These have already yielded a dozen large beautiful fruits each. Under Matt’s back side is the pepper bed. Jalapeno, Habanero, Ancho, Red Chili Peppers, Hot Cherry Peppers and an Ichiban Eggplant for good measure. The bed of fallen tops to the right is a bed of onions, both red and yellow.


Pictured here is Matt looking over the tomato plants. Yes, looking over. These are already as tall as our fence and then some. These plants where hardy 4-6 inch tall plants purchased from a garden center around mothers day. We are growing Park’s Whoppers, Mr. Stripey’s, Grape, Husky Cherry, Roma, Yellow Globe and Yellow Cherry tomatoes. We are already harvesting Yellow Cherry, Red Grape and Yellow Globe tomatoes. And we have also taken our first eggplant!





These are our OOC Yellow Squash and Zucchini plants. Both have given us close to a dozen fruits each! Some Zucchini have been as large as a man’s forearm. Well some men's forearms are bigger than others, but you get the idea.

In the basket’s pictured here is one days feast. Not including the two squash and two zucchini not pictured. And, that is not a bush that I am crushing below that strawberry box it is the pineapple sage! On this day Matt made a half a dozen zucchini bread loaves and muffins. Stored in the freezer well wrapped we will enjoy his baking for some time to come. Thanks Matt! And we always have the most wonderful bowl of home grown cherry tomatoes to snack on in the fridge. I see canning coming soon!

Last minute addition: Cesar found our first Tomato worm. Nasty bugger. She was about 4" long and as big around as my size 10 ring finger. There was already a few eggs on the leaves that fell to the ground upon picking the leaves. I will have to keep and eye out for it's evil offspring. If you get these guys in your garden eradicate it with vengance. They will come back next year. And this morning, more squash and zucchini, and lots of peppers!!! Hot peppers!!!