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.

Yep... Still Green

written by Yvonne

Honey and Olive wanted to make sure everyone knows how much they help in all of our gardening endeavors.  They did a good job of making sure these bales of straw didn't blow away.

And yes, you guessed it. We are still (happily) eating spinach and lettuce!  Baskets full!

And there is still plenty more growing!  Actually, after harvesting a good amount of the spinach pictured here, we started pulling up the plants because they've begun to bolt.

This is the other end of the lettuce/spinach bed. Tom tilled it and planted (from left to right) snap peas, Provider bush beans, Maxibell bush beans.  In the background you can see new rows of spinach coming up in bed #3.

The collards, Swiss chard and kale are just about ready to eat.  Next weekend I'll likely make something with the Swiss chard. Upon further inspection, Tom determined that the large plant in the right foreground is a couple of turnips, not collards.  Still good eatin' either way.

Only a few of the peas have come up so far (center).

This volunteer cucumber showed up out of nowhere. It's a little early for cucumbers but if it wants to come up now, fine by us.

Still plucking off the strawberry flowers and it seems to be working because the plants are really growing nicely.

We are a behind in starting summer seeds. We should have started melons, squash, peppers and tomatoes a few weeks ago, but there are only so many hours in a weekend.  Tom filled up the pots I made with dirt and tomorrow I'll get some squash, melons, and pumpkin seed started.

Tom also tilled the garden annex area. Ya know, I think we just like having this as potential so we get it ready every year and think we're going to find just the right thing to make it work. Yes, a few squashes materialized last year, but for the most part, it's been a dud. Well NO MORE! Boy do we have plans for it now!  You may recall we purchased rosemary and two kinds of mint plants in early Spring. This is where they are going to reside and we have high hopes they will 'take' since both are aggressive and hearty. We've managed to keep the plants alive through some really cold weather. Now that the bed is ready, they'll get planted tomorrow.  THEN, we're going to take chicken wire previously used for compost bins and hang it on the outside of the carport.  We'll secure it down at the bottom of this of brick wall with stakes.  Then we'll transplant some jasmine at the back of this bed and let it grow up the chicken wire.  We'll have a nice beautiful natural wall blocking off the ugly carport. It'll make for a much nicer view from the back patio.  We did the same thing several years ago on one end of the front porch and it's worked great.

Whew!  It's finally done! And what a job it was. It took two weekends, many hours, 3 broken tools, and MANY loads of brush wheeled to the front yard for pick up.  But the back fence line has now been completely cleared out. We cleared a third of it together two weekends ago then Tom finished the last 2/3 by himself.

Here's what it looked like before....

and here it is after!

Before...

after!

This is before mostly shows the overgrown compost bins. Nonetheless, here is before...

and after!  Doesn't even look like the same yard, does it? Now that it's a nice open, accessible space Tom was able to get to the trees to hang some bee boxes. (Read more about that later this week at www.tsbeeshoney.com.)  Our neighbors told us numerous times over the weekend how great it looked. Guess it was worse than we thought.

Getting Into The Hot Days of July

written by Yvonne


Although the cabbage is coming in, it's getting eat by bugs so we may have to abandon these if we can't get the bug problem under control.

Thanks to Tom covering the blueberries with netting, we got blueberries this year!  I took them and some fresh cherries (store bought) and made a crisp.

(The color on these next two photos are off - the plants are not really this gray looking.) WE HAVE BROCCOLI!  Sure wish we knew what we did to FINALLY get them to produce the edible part.

And eat we did!  I made a mushroom broccoli stir fry and it was delicious.

In answer to your question Rebecca: Don't get me wrong - I love the broccoli and we will continue growing as much as we can. However, I'm not as knocked out by the flavor in the same way I am with our home grown carrots, tomatoes and berries. To me it didn't taste much more broccoli-y than good store bought.

Our beans ran over. The vine laying across the two beds is actually on a stake but it fell over from the weight of the vine.

These crowder peas are coming in like gangbusters.

The kale has been a great addition to our smoothies in the mornings. But now the bugs have gotten to them too much and they need to be pulled up. I know from this photo it looks like they are healthy and edible, but when you turn the leaves over, there are lots of worms and eggs (ICK) on the backs that are just too much work to clean off.

The Swiss chard on the other hand is growing, it keeps growing, and it has no bugs. I made a big mess o' chard last night for dinner.

Cucumbers are coming in at the rate of two or three per day.  Per Tom's suggestion I took two of the large baseball-bat sized cucumbers and harvested the seeds from them.  He brought up a great point which is that we are buying heirloom seeds which means the seeds can be harvest and planted over and over again - we should start doing that with as many plants as possible, instead of buying new seeds every year.

Tomatoes are just starting to flower.

Before we lose too many more plants to bugs, Tom got out his Dustructor (a piece of equipment that is supposed to be used in beekeeping, but didn't quite work for him) and showered the garden (and himself) with BT.  I think he learned his lesson and will stand up-wind next time.

Summer Time Good Eats

written by Yvonne

They're finally here and they are delicious!  We've been eating raspberries several mornings for breakfast with a some yogurt and topped with chopped pecans. Yum!

This weekend I harvested one big batch and made a raspberry buckle (kinda like coffee cake). Looks like there may be just enough left on the bushes for one or two more good breakfasts.

The chard seemed to take a long time to come up but now that it has, we can barely keep up with eating it.

I harvest about 1 bunch of the largest leaves for dinner one night (shown here).  In about two days time the plants grew back so large that it looked like the I hadn't harvest any leaves at all.

This is... geez, I'm not sure what this is. Whatever it was, it ain't no more. We must have taken this picture a week or two ago because now there is no part of any bed that has this much empty space.

The crowder peas are... well... they're really crowded.  :)  As of this photo, they had just barely started to flower.

Just like last year, once the Spring snow and snap peas were done, the Summer cow peas started filling in.

The cabbage is forming heads which is great, but the bugs are certainly getting to them. Looks like we need to sprinkle some BT this weekend.

This, again, was taken two weeks ago because these tomatoes are now three times this size.

If you look just left of center you can see the long green beans. They can be hard to see at first, but as you move the leaves out of the way, there are tons of them. I made a big batch of beans and potatoes which was enough for dinner and lunch the next day. This past weekend I made green beans and shitake mushrooms which was enough for two dinner side dishes and one left over lunch.

Tom is in NYC on a photo shoot right now and he always gets to eat fantastic food. He ate the left over green beans and mushrooms for lunch before his flight and sent me the following text: "WOW, our fresh green beans and your amazing dish are WONDERFUL! I'll be hard pressed to eat something as wonderful in New York."

And there were STILL enough beans to blanch and freeze. I'll harvest more today and freeze them as well.

Let's talk cucumbers. We all know they're one of my favorites even though they're not super versatile. Similar to the Swiss chard they certainly do keep producing. After pulling the first cucumber of the season, two ready to pick the next day. After picking those two, there were four ready the next day... you get the picture.

Even after splurging by making cucumber water several days in a row, and coming up with a new cucumber 'appetizer' to enjoy before dinner each night, I've STILL given away a few bags worth of cucs to friends. Cucs aren't Tom's favorite so I tried to think of a way to have them that might spark his interest.  I sliced one up, sprinkled it with lemon pepper, and topped with just a few pieces of crumbled blue cheese. We both LOVE it. So from now until the cucs are done, this will be our before dinner appetizer.

Is this what I think it is? No. No way. This can't be broccoli! I mean we planted broccoli sure, and the plants came up and all. But as you well know, we are always able to get broccoli plants, they just never produce the part you eat. I mean this is what, our fourth attempt at broccoli?  OH MY GOSH, IT IS BROCCOLI!!!!!!!!!!

(Sorry about the color on this.) This is a BIG harvest of oregano that has been drying for a few weeks. I think it's safe to say we'll have plenty of dried oregano through the winter.

It's OK if you're envious of how we're eating right now...

A proud vegetable grower cooking and puttin' up lots of good food.