The best thing about having your own garden is eating the food you grow. This year, we tried strawberries for the first time and we grew pickling cucumbers again.

Strawberries

Our strawberry plant (with a sign Nick’s mom made me!)

We got our strawberry plant on a whim in April. We had read that it was best to pinch off the flowers for the first season to encourage growth, so we did that, not expecting to see strawberries until next year. Our strawberry plant grew happily and sent out runners that started several daughter strawberry plants.

Earlier this month, we decided to leave a few flowers on the mother plant so we could try a few strawberries. We ate the first two berries yesterday and WOW! They were so delicious and flavorful! We’re so excited to let it grow more berries next year.

Pickling Cucumbers

Our first batch of pickling cucumbers

We had so much fun making our own pickles last year that we decided to do it again. We grew our own cucumber and dill plants from seed. Growing dill was a new project for us. It grew well, but we will try to time it better next year so that it’s ready for harvesting at the same time as the pickling cucumbers (it was a bit early this year, but we made it work).

The pickling cucumber plant has been happily producing cucumbers, but it’s a little crowded between the strawberry plants and our gigantic bean plant (I had no idea the bean plant would get so big and it’s still growing!). We harvested our first cucumbers at the end of July and we get more cucumbers every week.

Last year, we only had jars large enough to make pickle chips. We added garlic and dill and they were awesome on hamburgers. This year, we got jars large enough for pickle spears, so we have been making those, too. Pickles are so much better when they’re homemade! Yum!