Our September Garden

Our garden has been changing a lot this month. In fact, we have seen many changes even since I took these photos a few days ago. We are eating grapes and kale from the garden on a regular basis these days. Our zucchini and tomatoes are producing their last fruits. We have jalapeno and Anaheim peppers, a few beets, and some parsley and basil that will soon go to seed. Our winter squash is finishing up (we even ate a delicata squash for dinner the other night!). And our potatoes that we planted this summer are still growing. We aren't sure if they didn't get enough light, and will be small (as we had expected the plants to have yellowed already), but I am going to wait another week or so before I dig in and check things out myself. I planted garlic and shallots last week, as well as some lettuce starts (because the birds keep eating all of my seeds that I plant). Hoping to get another round of herbs into the ground in the next week or so, but haven't yet had the time.
All in all we had a decent gardening summer, especially considering we weren't around all that much. However, I can tell that our soil is starting to become depleted even though we regularly add compost. We are starting to see the same pests again and again, even with crop rotation. Essentially, I think our available area is really just too small to grow everything we want each year, and in reality we should be rotating crops and only growing each family once every few years. But that's so fun. I think next year we will add a layer of fresh soil to our garden, which is sort of cheating, but I think that is the only way we can maintain a diverse garden in a small space.