Spring 2016 Update

written by Yvonne

Things are finally coming up. Seems like it takes twice as long as the package says for seeds to sprout, but for the most part, everything eventually does come up.

Me taking a picture of Tom taking a picture of the garden.

The first blackberry flower of the season. This photo makes the flower look huge, but it's actually quite small. I didn't even see it but on closer inspection, Tom saw it and snagged a shot.

The strawberries have been flowering for many weeks now but the flowers are hard to spot. We didn't tend these at all during the winter and they came through just fine. This is the main strawberry patch. There are two others in large pots.

When you pull back all that green, there are many of small flowers; some have started to drop their leaves and are forming the berries.

Very successful cabbage. Still probably need to thin these out because once they get big, I don't know if there will be enough space for all of them to mature.

Collards doing GREAT.

This is Swill Chard which was planted several weeks after the collards.

The lettuce has come on full force. It's actually bigger than this now and we've even begun eating from it. Adding arugula to our lunch salad is such a treat!

(Ants view of the lettuce.)

The peas haven't taken off like I'd hoped, but this one is coming along OK.

To the left is a patch of carrots and the larger plant on the right is beans.

Kale.

Spinach is WAY disappointing. I planted two full packs of seeds in the area and this is all that's come up.

This is oregano that came back after winter. I'll be drying some more soon because we just ran out.

This is thyme that also came back after the winter. I planted parsley and cilantro a few weeks ago but no signs of it yet. Most herbs don't want to come out until it's consistently super hot weather. We've been having a beautiful cool spring so I'm not giving up on these seeds just yet.

An overview of the Spring garden after a good rain.

A Colorful Late Summer

written by Yvonne

A quick sketch of what to plant in each bed with Fall crops is necessary to keep us on track and to make sure we don't forget anything.  Bed #4 is full of tomatoes right now but will be open in a month or so and we can use that for something else so it's good to have a plan to follow.

After mapping it out, we used stakes to identify what is where, then went about planting all the seeds. This bed is lettuce, kale, spinach and collards. Greens, greens and more greens!

We pulled out the last of the cow and crowder peas. Got 'em all shelled and ready for some fall/winter eatin'.

The berries appear ready to put out another small batch. Cool!  Looks like not nearly as many as in early spring but any amount that comes up is good with us.

These are sunflower seeds I saved from a big sunflower plant several years ago. The seeds certainly germinated but these are about one quarter of the size of the original flower. Still, they are beautiful to look at.

Salsa anyone?  I just love having this kind of variety and colors of tomatoes!

Is it Spring, or is it Summer?

written by Yvonne

It's summer. Now it's spring. No, definitely summer.  Oops, wrong again - spring.  And thus, our weather lately.  For about three nights, it was cold enough that we had to pull the cover cloths out to cover up the early spring items we'd planted. Just about everything did well because it warmed up nicely during the day, although there may have been one casualty... read on.

All of the white flowers on these vines are berries!  I'm more excited about this than just about anything we've grown to date.

I managed to get one of Tom's workers doing some pollinating (or at least I think this is one of his bees - I couldn't quite see her T's Bees branding tattoo.)  You can also see the berry has formed - it's the middle section of the flower. Once the petals have fallen off, the berry is what's left.

Sorry about the blurriness.  BLUEBERRIES!

Tom cut the rose bush way back in the fall because it was really getting out of control.  Other than that, nothing has been done to it, and yet it keeps putting out flowers.

I got a LOT of seeds started last weekend, including: A second batch of all the tomatoes (Druzba, Money Maker, Black Giant, Jelly Bean), peppers (Golden Wonder, Banana, Mariachi), more squash, cucumbers, and okra. I also planted all the flower seeds we had which included poppy, sunflowers, nasturtium, and several packs of wild flowers.  I also restarted all the onion seeds because only two have come up.

Scenes from the rest of the garden:

A very small but growing basil plant.

Oregano.

Here is the possible casualty.  The leaves on one of the varieties of squash turned brown on the ends after the cold snap.  However, there were new leaves coming through the center of the plant that seemed OK.  Time will tell.

This is a different variety of squash, and it did just fine in the cold.

These look like parsnips, but they are indeed radishes.

I guess if it's bulging out of the ground, it's probably time to pick it, eh?  I pulled up the largest one and added it to our salads this week - it was delicious.

And speaking of salads, our butter crunch lettuce was large enough to finally make two salads.

This is the red sails and mesculin (OK seriously, how do you spell this word?) lettuce were planted several weeks after the butter crunch.  I totally see how great succession planting is.  By the time we've eaten all the butter crunch, this lettuce will be "online" and ready to eat.  Yeah succession planting!

Broccoli and cauliflower.

Very small something.

Okra and Olive.

Marjoram (I think).

Chard.  For dinner the other night I sauted some of these with garlic, a can of tomatoes, fresh parsley and tossed all of it with pasta - YUM.

Spinach - threw some of this in the salads.

Cucumbers (foreground) and parsley (background).

Beets.

Kale.

Carrots and a lot of weeds.

Cow peas (kind of struggling).

Snow peas. I finally broke down and tied them to the stakes since they wouldn't latch on by themselves.

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VEG: Good Eats

written by Yvonne

We are at that part of summer where it's all about harvesting. So far, only three possible tomato plants have popped up (very sad about that), but peppers, basil, oregano, and okra are all on their way. I'm hoping this is my year for cucumbers. I've gotten some in the past but not nearly enough. We harvest two last night and had those as a salad with dinner.

There are a LOT more coming out on the vines so it's just a matter of getting to them before the bugs do. One reason we might actually have successful cucumbers this year? T's bees! I even caught one in action.

Squash has been plentiful as always.

Last night, along with our cucumber salad, Tom made fried squash. We added a dash of Texas Pete to them and they were YUM YUM!

We finally got around to hanging the garlic we pulled up last week. We found a perfect spot for them to dry where they are outside but not in direct sun, and no 4-legged creatures can get to them.

Each clove we planted produced a nice, big bulb. Once they have dried for several weeks, we will cut off the stems and roots and knock the dirt off. You have to be somewhat delicate with them until they are dried so less handling is better.

 

Weekly followers of TY VeggiePatch may recall that Tom was given a fig tree by a friend. She's got a big heart for felines, but her thumb? Not so green. Here is what it looked like when the pitiful thing came to our 'farm' on May 7.

And here is what it looks like now, about 6 or 7 weeks later! Truth be told, we haven't done a whole lot to it other than add some nutrients into the soil and water it occasionally. Once the weather cools off some, we'll find a place for it in the yard and make it a permanent addition to TY's Farm.

This 'volunteer' sunflower just popped up on the side of the house. Beautiful!