Late Season Garden Surprise

You've just got to love those unexpected late season surprises from the garden.  About a month ago I was walking by one of the berry patches when I noticed there were raspberries ripening on some of the plants.  Yum!  There were about 6 or seven, just enough for the three of us to wish there were more.

Then about a week ago I looked again, this time knowing berries were going to be ripe soon, and got to share a handful with Cody.

Today I went out again and sure enough, a good sized handful this time, 1/3 - 1/2 cup perhaps.  I wondered to myself how long it would be before we would be able to harvest berries like I remember picking from when I was growing up, which seems like about 2 quarts every couple of days.  There were so many that even though we ate a lot of berries while we were picking them, we always took lots and lots inside and they would make for a great after dinner snack or something.  I don't know how mom ever had enough to make jam, but we just always had THAT many berries each year. 

I got our berries this year from someplace I ran across online.  The priced was very affordable and they were absolutely gorgeous plants.  While I'm trying to be patient and could let my berry patch expand on it's own, I think I may place another order next spring and 'help it along' some.  If anyone interested, I ordered them from Pense Nursery.  

We're Havin' a Heat Wave...

...a tropical heat wave... the temperature's rising, it isn't surprising....   Okay, maybe not... but now the song is stuck in my head.  Sorry if you now share my pain....

Tonight I went out into the garden to see if anything needed picking.  13.5 lbs. of Butternut Squash (with about half that still left to go) and two tomatoes.  My 2nd to last Watermelon is going to be ready in a couple of days, as will my last Cantaloupe. 

It's a good thing I got pictures when I did.  The long stretch of unbearably hot weather and no rain has done a number on my garden... well, It's probably more of the pests than that but still. 

Broccoli,  Tomatoes, and Peppers really didn't do too well this year, but then again, I got them in late and them moved the plants a time or two so they wouldn't be mowed over. 

I have some Cabbages that are starting to curl up into their cute little heads, but they are starting to have nightly visitors that think these cabbage leaves are supposed to look like doughnuts!  Um, I don't think so, but at least it won't affect the way it tastes, and once it's cooked, no one will notice a thing anyhow.


Much Love & Hugs ~

Can a garden be TOO good?

Spaghetti Squash

Watermelon

Pumpkins, Beans, & Corn

With the harvest of strawberries, wild blackberries, cucumbers, zucchinis, potatoes, summer squashes, and purple green beans, I've had little time to keep up with the aspects of garden work like watching out for bugs or weeding... not to mention the inside of my house!


Although I can't exactly say that my garden looks as pretty as it did this time last year, I sure have had a bumper crop of many of the vegetables so far.

These are what purple green-beans look like

I have about 8 bottles of pickle relish, about 2 gallons of dill pickles, 25-ish bottles of blackberry jam, (plus made 2 blackberry pies), cucumbers for eating nearly every day, 11+ pounds of potatoes (this after moles/voles took out 2/3 of the potato patch), 3 pumpkins, approximately 25 pounds of zucchini and summer squash (feels like 50!), beans for eating as well as two quarts in the freezer. Plus we ate all 25 pounds of strawberries before I could make jam of them!

Carrots & Cucumbers

Even though the cucumbers look to be about done and the ears of corn flopped, (yes, that was a lame attempt to be clever and witty) we ended up with only one ear that made me think of a jack-o-lantern's toothless smile with a lonely kernel here and there.

But the watermelon and cantaloupe are coming along beautifully! The first watermelon fell off the vine prematurely but there one that will be ready for harvest in about 2 days, with 3 more ready a week or so in between each other. *Do watermelon plants do that on purpose? How convenient!* The cantaloupe is growing on an old wooden ladder someone had put out for garbage pickup and has several melons growing on the various steps. There are probably 5or 6 melons so far... also conspicuously times for approximate picking a week or so apart.... hmmm....

Cantaloupe & my 'new' old ladder

Tomatoes are starting to ripen and the butternut squash plants went completely CRAZY this year! I have at least a dozen of them turning a pretty peachy orange color. Even my lonely spaghetti squash plant that ended up being 1 zucchini plant and 1 spaghetti squash plant has a new squash on it. So, one almost ready and another one coming along nicely. If I get busy, I can plant some more for fall. They will be a little smaller, but small is better than none.

I'll admit the peppers aren't doing so great, probably because I had to keep moving them within their bed for one reason or another, and the broccoli has mostly gone to seed this year. They just didn't have enough cool weather by the time I had them ready to plant. And the cauliflower... it never even made it into the ground. I ran out of stamina and motivation by that time. But I have to say I've been impressed to see the cabbages looking pretty nice.

Broccoli, Dill, & Cabbage

The raspberries transplanted well, so we got a taste test of what it will be like when they produce next year, and the asparagus... we'll have to see. It took what felt like forever to figure out where they could be planted without having to move them and I have no idea if they have or will survive the wait that was forced upon them.

So what's next you ask? I've started some more corn seed *learned my lesson from hungry voles eating them all* and we'll see if it has time to do anything before the end of the season... I'm REALLY hoping! I also need to replant potatoes, peas, beans, and a couple of other "fall" garden crops. I make no guarantees that it will happen.

So far, all the pictures have been from mid-June. Below are the pictures I took today. = )

Garden looking South-West

Garden looking North-West

Garden looking South-East

Cantaloupe

Cucumbers front left

Spaghetti and Butternut Squashes

Watermelon

Tomatoes

Raspberries

Okay, Fine! One more... Last but not least, my poor, sad, neglected strawberry bed. R.I.P *Sniff*

Strawberry plants playing hide & go seek with the weeds

Nothing pretty, I only show it as motivation for me to do something about it. Let the heat (or even just the humidity) dissipate a bit and I'll have it prettied up in no time! Maybe...

Each year is better and better...

So I seem to be having a problem with voles, or at least I think they are the enemy. Moles tunnel around the yard and then these sneaky little voles use the tunnels to ravage my garden *okay, dramatic, I know*

You wouldn't know by looking at this potato bed that I had also planted 200 *yes, it's not a typo* pea seeds. Not only did I plant them, but I soaked and sprouted them first thinking I would out smart this small competitor. 100% germination going about it this way. Well, no such luck. Of the 200 seeds I planted, only 12 - 18 plants have made it above ground. But, that's still better than the Watermelon bed.

In the watermelon bed I also planted 200 pea seeds. (different variety). Only 4 of them have seen the light of day. And, one of my watermelon hills conveniently disappeared. So I'm left with the box spring tee pee I fashioned for my peas to be supported and will replant a couple more peas in the late summer in hopes that the little vermin doesn't find a midnight snack. In the mean time I will get some more watermelon in and see what they will do.

Then I have this awesome little find from last week. There have been many times I've seen really cute garden pictures where an old wood latter is used at a trellis support. Well, I'm not going to go buy one just to have it look cute in my garden! But wouldn't you know on my way home from taking Ty to Youth Group at the church, I saw one set out for the morning trash!

I was so torn! I want it for my garden, but Tyson is with me and I've learned that he has liberally adopted the attitude of "everyone else's trash is my treasure", rather than "some peoples trash is another person's treasure". I decided to get it then as by the time I would be awake enough to get it in the morning the garbage would have already been picked up. I'm sure I gave Cody a scare when he realized I had bought it home. He was very relieved to see it in the garden later in the day.

I really need to re-evaluate the pumpkin concept with beans and corn. I wasn't expecting them to grow so fast and thought by the time the pumpkins got "really big", the bush beans would be finished and I would have been a genius for utilizing my space in this way.

Well, I forget how well my fertilizer concoction works and now they are all going crazy! (The corn would be too if the vole had left it alone, but then, I'm thinking if all the beans and corn had come up, I'd have an even bigger "mess" on my hands! ) So, the lesson, You can plant corn and beans together, you can plant pumpkins and corn together, but pumpkins and beans will just make you nuts!

On a happy note, half of the beans I planted (and most of what actually came up) are purple "green" beans! They will be a beautiful purple color, and when they are cooked they turn green. I thought that would make for some fun gardening, easier to find and pick, and cooking too.

Then of course there is the entertaining conversation at dinner, "I thought we were having purple beans." "We are." "These are green." "No, they are purple." I'm sure you can continue the conversation just fine without any more help from me.

Incidentally, I already have little baby pumpkins on the way! They are Cinderella pumpkins and supposed to be one of THE BEST possible pie pumpkins around. The only other one I wanted more is nearly impossible to find the seed for.

 The Zucchini and onions are filling in fast. I plan to have some fun trying some cross pollinating later with the pumpkins... That is one of the funnest parts about gardening with Heirlooms... You can experiment and save your seeds if your experiment works!

 Five zucchini are already growing! Last year I had to wait several weeks after my plants started flowering because they were mostly male buds. I hope my neighbors like me when the summer is through...

 Last year when I planted my Strawberry crowns (50 of them) only 5 lived to see daylight. Needless to say I was a tad disappointed.

Well, over the summer they sent out their little suckers and by the end of the summer I had well over 100 plants to replant. This is the fruit of their (and my) labors. So far we have easily harvested 10 lbs. of berries. (thanks to the bird netting)

The strawberry plants haven't been "fed" yet or I'm sure there would have been more. They are slowing down for the time being, but I think they are supposed to put out a second crop in mid - late summer. Hopefully those will make it into at least a batch or two of homemade jam!

Speaking of Strawberries, that reminds me of our cherry crop this season. Not much, our trees are about 3 or 4 years old now, but the bird netting saved our small crop. (last year the birds got to them before I even had time to think about it. You might say my head was in the clouds...)

They are about the size of cranberries! That is something I will need to look into. It can't be for lack of water because we had PLENTY of rain this spring. If anyone has any insight, please pass it along.

These tall weed looking things you see here are actually carrots that I have let go to seed. I moved them from a different bed *they had grown over the winter* and I hoped they would just continue, but they had other plans. *Anyone need some carrot seed?*


This also happens to be the bed where I have our cucumbers. They are already growing vigorously and I'm sure they will be very happy when the carrot seed is harvested and opens up a little more space behind them.



The cucumbers were like the zucchini last year. A lot of male buds in the beginning, but not this year! on just one plant I have about 1/2 dozen cukes starting to grow. I have 5 plants. Can you say "pickles"?  That is if they make it past the kitchen table.

 I specifically planted pickling cukes this year because they are good eating too and it appears we have become addicted to them. I even offered some to a couple of little girls that are incredibly picky eaters (cucumbers in general, nothing from the garden yet.) I didn't tell them they were a vegetable, and they suspiciously agreed to try them.  A look of delight and "Wow! They taste kind of like watermelon!" They were SHOCKED to find out they liked a VEGETABLE!!! So was their dad. That was fun!

Lastly, the broccoli and cabbage bed. It's not so pretty, but it's incredibly happy to be in the ground. They sat outside waiting very impatiently to be transplanted, and now that they have been they are starting to look a lot better. Now if I could just finish getting in the cauliflower and marigolds/nasturtiums, I could finally say I'm all finished transplanting into the garden... for now.



Updates still to come on the tomatoes and peppers... and anything else that makes it into the ground.

From last year's garden reality...

...to this year's gardening dreams.

I'm trying to decide if I can really keep up with a gardening page. But it does serve two purposes. First, it will be a journal to make comparisons later on, and second, I just might be able to share something that will be new information for someone else!

So far, I have several seeds started. I was looking at my starts and realized I'm going to be very short on space! I'm not sure I ever thought I would have that problem! I have about 6 dozen marigold plants (only for garden pests since marigolds are probably one of my least favorite flowers...), 4 dozen broccoli plants, 1 dozen cauliflower, 1 dozen cabbage, 1 dozen sunflowers, 1 dozen nasturtiums, 1 dozen sweet pea flowers, and I'm sure I'm missing a few others.

I'm excited to "try" and put together a temporary green house this year. I had bought some supplies to do one two years ago, but never did get started on it. I'm actually glad though, because this one will be easier, smaller, and just as effective!

How to Make a "Hoop" Greenhouse

To make a 4 x 8-ft. hoop house, buy a 10 x 25-ft. sheet of 4-mil plastic ($5) and nine 10-ft. lengths of 1/2-in. PVC pipe ($1 each; inset photo) from a home center. Photos 1 – 3 show you how to build and use it. Choose a level spot with lots of sunlight and use the dimensions shown in Photo 1.

If the ground is hard or gravelly, wedge open the holes by driving a short length of PVC pipe into the ground with a mallet or hammer.

Mark the perimeter of your hoop house with twine and stakes. Following our pattern, push one end of each PVC pipe 6 to 8 in. into the ground, bend the pipe gently, and push the other end 6 to 8 in. into the ground as well. Place the pipes in pairs spaced about 6" apart.

LAY the plastic sheet over the hoops. You can anchor extra material at the ends with heavy rocks. Then push a third pipe into the ground halfway between each pair.

SET your seedlings inside the house. Simply slide the plastic up or down for access and to control airflow and heat.

Looking at July Pictures from last year's garden I get extra excited. We realized that putting on a heavy layer of grass clippings each week (we had to rotate beds, even with shy of 2 acres!) eliminated the need to weed. How is that a bad thing, right? Helped feed the plants, and kept the beds looking pretty. This year when I get started I'll see if I can talk my neighbors into being accomplices to grassing up our new garden, and with our mowings after that we will be able to keep them covered.