Gardening @ our Fairfax home

Pictures speak with some words.
Summer 2013 was unique with spotty heavy rains, cooler weather and some chipmunk interruptions in our garden.  Always enjoy eating something from our backyard garden. Here are this years produce
Tomatoes and Jalapeños.

Zucchini squash, Banana peppers, more Jalapeños and yellow pepper.

 Broccoli was trickier to grow than I thought, moth eggs were always slowing down the growth, hurray for the Bacillus bacteria that kept moth and insects away.

Watermelon - with summer being not really warm enough, this was a miracle survivor (didn't freeze)

Finally the collection of projects from the garden (Left to right) to savor throughout winter
Dried Basil (about a 1 cu feet of basil leaves made a small bottle), Sun-dried tomato (about 20 tomatoes), pickled jalapeños (about 20) , Pickled Banana peppers (about 30)

all this made possible by home made rain water system (budget < $25).  Use a Recycle bin ($14) and a holesaw ($2), PVC pipes 1.5" ($6) and a PVC ball shut-off valve ($4).

 I did splurge later got a water pump to help pump the water out "EcoPlus 728310 Eco 396 Submersible Pump, 396GPH" $20 - of course from Amazon (Link)