All my efforts are finally coming into fruition, the real harvesting begins.

It’s the fourteenth week in the garden. And oh my, what a big week it was. The only thing I can say is that it was beyond productive. Now it’s time, let’s get to the good stuff.

The rest of my potatoes were finally harvested and in total I plucked 67 potatoes out of the ground. For my first year growing potatoes, I think I did rather well and I’m extremely excited about my achievement. My tasty spuds are currently curing in my garage so I’m able to store them properly without having the fear of them turning bad before I get to enjoy them. Sure it’s not enough potatoes to feed me and my family for the year but it’s enough to definitely supplement our pantry a bit. Either way it’s hard to not enjoy potatoes, especially potatoes that you grew yourself. The limited quantity only makes them all the more special.

However, my tasty little spuds aren’t the only veggies I harvested this week. I also picked eight cucumbers and even a small handful of jalapenos. I shall say it was a very successful and productive week. Not to mention the produce I’m picking has been absolutely gorgeous not to mention very delicious.

This week's harvest is making me really excited for the next weeks to come. My pepper plants are absolutely inundated with fruit. I have beautiful sweet bells, adorable cherries and so many more jalapenos that I can’t even count them all. I have a very strong feeling that come August and September the pepper harvest is going to be completely off the rails. I simply can not wait, I’m just excited for the most excellent pepper season. I can’t even remember a time where I had so many peppers coming on at once, it’s positively splendid.

With all the excitement of harvesting the garden, I almost forgot to mention that this great week was almost completely shadowed by something that could have been tragic for the garden, a storm. This storm wasn’t just a shower, it was a full blown severe thunderstorm that almost took out a good portion of my tomato bushes and even my cucumber trellis.

The rain was coming down in sheets and it washed away the soil around my tomato cages. Then to make it even worse, the wind was so ferocious that it promptly blew them over. Leaving my tomato plants bent and almost uprooted.

I woke up to this horrific site to make up to at 6 a.m. of toppled plants, broken branches and tangled cucumber vines.

In a panic, I went out in my pajamas and tried to repair the damage. Luckily, I only lost a few tomatoes and had a couple of broken branches. It was still very upsetting but it could have definitely been much worse. The only thing I could do was fix the problem and prepare better for the next. Which of course, I certainly did. I tied the cages in place for a little extra support and also I tied together some of the really tall tomato branches so they could be more supported. We had a couple more storms throughout the week and it seems that all my proactive actions really did the trick. Hopefully, it stays that way.

Anyway, that’s all I have for this week. I hope to have more harvests this week and maybe even some recipes that come directly from the garden. It really is a very exciting time so I hope you will continue to follow me in all my gardening endeavors.

You can check out the full gallery of the garden below.

Until next week, Happy Gardening!