This year we decided to try onions and potatoes in the vegetable garden. In previous years we did tomatoes and bell peppers, but we were always battling blight with the tomatoes. We also don’t use that many tomatoes in the kitchen, so we picked crops that seemed more useful.

We ordered our potatoes from Ronniger Potato Farm (www.ronnigers.com). They carry a wide variety, so we chose a couple that sounded good. Carola was our first selection. These are a very typical German yellow potato. Our second selection was Red Pontiac. This one we selected because it was supposed to do well in the south. We also decided to test some regular Russets we bought at the grocery store.

The potatoes popped right up and grew really well during the spring. Our hot summer however caused them to die a little early, but I think we got a nice little crop for our first attempt. We still have some in the raised bed along the side of the house. We’ll see how long they can hold on.

Raised Potato and Onion Bed

Backyard Garden Potatoes

For the onions we just grabbed a bundle of Texas sweet onions from Lowes. They should have gone in the ground earlier, but we still got to enjoy some tasty onions from the garden.

Garden Onions

The big bed has been replanted with pumpkin plants we grew from seeds. They seem to be really healthy, so hopefully come October we’ll have some nice fall decorations. We grew the plants from a pumpkin we bought last year at Jaemor Farms (www.jamsjellies.com) in North Georgia.

Starting Pumpkin Seeds

Young Pumpkin Plants

We are ready for some warm weather!! After the 70 degree temperatures this past weekend I can offically say we have the spring itch. Steffi has been making garden plans, and we have been raking up the leaves, pulling weeds, and started prepping the raised beds for our veggies. After the flooding, the snow, and the cold temperatures we are ready to get back out in the yard.

In our raised bed we went ahead and put in some sweet Texas onions. We also ordered a couple varities of potatoes. Last year we grew way too many tomatoes, but I realized tomatoes don’t store very well and we don’t use them so much. Onions and potatoes will last for a while, and we use them frequently. We’ll see how it turns out.

We put onions in our main raised bed in the backyard.

Onions in our raised bed

And we put more onions in the bed on the south side of the house.

Onions in our side bed

We also demolished the old grill in our yard. It has been slowly falling apart since we bought the house, so it was time to go. It turned out to be more work than we expected. Who would have thought a few bricks would create so much debris?

So here’s the grill before. When we bought the house it had more bricks, but they kept falling off.

Ugly brick grill

After a little work with the sledgehammer it was a pile of rubble. Too bad it couldn’t just grow legs and walk away.

Demolished brick grill

We loaded it in the truck to haul it away. This was a lot of work.

Loaded in the truck

When we tell people we demolished the old grill in the backyard I’m sure they’ll look around and ask “What grill?” That is always the case when we remove things from the yard.

What grill?