This year we made our garden smaller than previous years, growing more peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. We have the main garden bed with the above mentioned vegetables and two raised beds with lettuce, carrots,onions, and radishes. The raised beds were new this year and only the radishes and a few carrots grew.
We also decided to try covering the garden with cardboard and staw to keep our weeding chores to a minimum, and so far it has worked out great. In previous years we spent hours every week trying to keep the weeds at bay, now it takes less than an hour per week. Covering your garden this way is labor intensive in the begining but the payoff is well worth it. If you are going to try this make sure you dont rely on the weight of the straw to hold the cardboard in place, we made this mistake and ended up with a week of windy days that left cardboard all over our property and our neighbors.
So far this year we have been able to can pickles, jalapenos, and salsa. There is nothing better than enjoying healthy food produced from your own garden. Below are some of the tomatoes picked today.
All photos taken by 
