While I was growing up, my parents planted a garden every year. We always had the staples of raspberries, tomatoes and zucchini. After 25 years of organic gardening and composting, they turned the garden planning over to me this year.

In late May, we headed to the local nursery. I’ve learned that if I start out with plants instead of seeds, I have a higher success rate and healthier, more bountiful plants. This year, our eyes ended up being bigger than our garden space! We planted six different varieties of tomatoes (the little yellow ones are so sweet, you can’t stop eating them!), three kinds of peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and an 11-herb garden. We had some leftover seeds from beans and peas, so decided to plant those, too.

Every year we try planting something that we haven’t tried before. This year we tried cabbage—an early variety and a type of Chinese cabbage.  Every time we went out to check on the garden, they made us smile. They were easy to grow, and we were impressed with how big they were! Did anyone else try a new vegetable or plant this year?

One of the jalapeno plants just won’t stop producing peppers–we’ve had over 30 peppers from just one plant!

We’ve had a pretty cool summer in Wisconsin, so our tomatoes were slow to ripen. However, now we have more than we know what to do with! We’ve already made spaghetti sauce, salsa and caprese salads. What do you do with all of your tomatoes? I’m lucky to have coworkers who are eager to take home some of my extras!

Our zucchini were growing faster than we could keep up with. Our largest one so far was 7 pounds. I have served grilled zucchini slices, veggie sautés, stuffed zucchini boats, zucchini breads and muffins—I’m running out of ideas. How do you use all of your zucchini?

All in all, I’ve had a very successful garden this year, and I can’t wait to see what next year’s harvest brings.