The barn garden, the definition of "lush"

I've been meaning to write about the vegetable garden at the barn for a while now. About ten of us went in on seeds and plants, and now we have this amazingly lush garden that cost each of us $20 and a little bit of sweat equity. We planted together, people are assigned to harvest twice a week, and each of us has a weeding day assigned, and that's pretty much it. It's amazing what we've harvested already: summer squash, zucchini, swiss chard, spinach, lettuce, beets, carrots, radishes, green beans and yellow wax beans, eggplants, potatoes, endive ... I think that's it, so far! There are a ton of tomatoes still ripening; we've harvested a few, but there are a lot more on the plants and in fact they needed to be thinned out because they were so thick that it didn't seem the tomatoes were getting enough sun.

This is all very exciting, but I have to admit that for a couple weeks now I've felt a bit of veggie overload. Back in the spring (when I usually make rash decisions about gardening) I bought a farm share from an organic farm. I pick that up each Monday at work, and then get load #2 on Fridays from the barn. Early in the season, it seemed we ate kale and chard in every conceivable form; now, we're doing the same thing with zucchini and squash. It's absolutely great to have all this good fresh food, but it is a bit overwhelming. Katie had to harvest for me last week; I'm trying to stay out of the garden since the footing is so uneven, and after quality time bean harvesting she said she hoped she NEVER saw another green bean again!

The monster zucchini harvested last week; still on the counter for new visitors to the house to marvel over :)







Looking down the garden, greens up at the top, squash and zucchini way down at the bottom, herbs in the raised bed over to the right.