Crappy garden soil.

Well I guess I got my answer.

Massimo bought a soil testing kit and we tried it this weekend. The PH came back normal. Everything else is low to very low. Nice. So i went out with the store bought chemical fertilizer and gave all the veggies a dose. For long term we need to treat the whole garden. My parents have cattle so I am going to get lots of fertilizer from them. We are also working on a compost pile that hopefully we can spread all over the garden this fall/winter to mix in.

So this explains why my peppers are struggling for life. It explains why half my seeds never came up and why those that did are growing so slowly.

On a happy garden note, i got 25 lbs of organic tomatoes for $20 last weekend. I was super excited. I canned 7 jars of whole tomatoes. I also had a few left for eating and one jar that I just put in the fridge because my canner only holds 7. :)

Next on my list is to try to make some Fridge pickles. It is a great idea to use those extra cucumbers when you only have 3-4 at a time. When I get a large amount I might can some dill pickles, but for now we are only getting one or two a week.