A Beautiful Day to Begin TY's 2015 Veggie Patch

written by Yvonne

We are still here!  And we're still gardening! This past year, late Summer, all of Fall, and the first half of Winter turned out to be much busier than usual. So although we did continue gardening, we had to give up the blog posts because of time constraints. But it's a new year with new commitments to our garden, our good food habits, and our blog.

Sometimes the amount of things to do in the garden are overwhelming so it helps to have a plan that works with the amount of time you actually have for the day. Otherwise, you can get sidetracked and the things that really need to get done don't. So we had a task list for the day and worked it from top to bottom.

Tom's main focus was on berries. We bought strawberry plants (a new addition to TY's Veggie Patch this year) a couple weeks ago and we couldn't wait any longer to get them planted or we'd lose them. Unlike the raspberry, blackberries and blueberries, strawberries wouldn't do too good directly in the ground. Therefore, we decided to take the herb box and make it the strawberry box. The herbs will get a new home (more to come about that in early Summer).

Tom got to work cleaning out the herb box. He salvaged some oregano that survived the winter and put those in a separate pot until the new herb bed is ready.

This is the strawberry bundle we bought at Renfrow Hardware. There are 26 separate plants in this bundle. Each plant...

looks like this.

12 plants made it into the box. The rest will be planted in large containers alongside the box.

Next up he planted a new blueberry bush.  He put it right next to the other two we already had, close to the bee hives.

Over the winter, we had kale, collards, spinach, and some lettuce growing under the hoop houses. In late fall/early winter, we harvested and ate some of all of them and left them to grow under the cover. Quite frankly, it's been months since I've even looked under them to see what has survived and what hasn't. Let's take a look...

Well, not bad. Looks like things didn't grow much, but they didn't die either so that's gives us a nice start for early Spring, otherwise known as "over-wintering".

First job for me was to weed this bed so the lettuce doesn't continue to get choked out.

Not too many weeds grew up between the kale and collards so that was an easy job.

On to beds 2 & 3. Since half of bed 2 was covered by the hoop house, it had virtually no weeds. Unfortunately, it also didn't have any turnips growing, which is what Tom planted in the fall. Once Tom finished with the berries, he weeded bed 3.

PLANTING TIME!!!

We put up markers even though all of this didn't get planted today. That way we made sure to leave space for the rest of the Spring plantings. Today we planted lettuce, collards, kale, Swiss chard, broccoli, and round 1 of cabbage. By the way, is there another kind of chard? If not, why is it not just called "chard"? Anyone?

When we bought the strawberries and blueberries, we also purchased a few herb plants. Two kinds of spearmint and one kind of rosemary.  Our job with them right now is to keep them warm and watered in the greenhouse until they are ready to go into the #%!*#$ spot next to the back patio where we can't seem to get anything else to grow.

Olive and Honey were SOOOO excited to spend the day outside.  They are out of practice so they pooped out pretty quick. And, they weren't the only ones.

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.

Everything is Green

written by Yvonne

Due to vacations and traveling, the garden has exploded with green-ness. Granted some of that green is weeds but much of it is not.

This is a mass of pole and bush beans that are just starting to flower.

The broccoli and cabbage started from seed has really taken root. Keep your fingers crossed that THIS will be the year we get broccoli to sprout.

Lots of snow and snap peas coming in. SO good in salads.

Now THIS is a lettuce bed!

The Russian kale is doing well, we just have to eat it up before it gets too hot and bolts. After having made an awesome kale salad, I decided I don't like the Russian kale as well as standard curly kale. I've noted that for future seed purchases.

The chard that Tom painstakingly uncovered is just about ready for a first harvest.

The cucumber plants are still small but as I looked under the leaves I say blossoms which means cucs aren't too far away!

Tom pulled out the Mantis Tiller to weed two small areas in beds 3 and 4. It made quick work of the job.

Once the weeds were out, he planted all of the tomato and peppers seedlings which means our summer garden is official planted!

THE RASPBERRIES ARE HERE! THE RASPBERRIES ARE HERE!

I started a lot of herbs in pots but only the dill and thyme sprouted. So I planted those two (too small to see in this picture) along with basil, cilantro, chive, and parsley seeds.  Basil has done well in the past started in pots, but it just didn't sprout this year.  Although I like getting a jump on the season, it may be best to stick to planting herbs direct. They don't want to come up until it's super hot outside anyway so it may be just as effective to wait. The large plant you see here is the oregano that came back on its own.

And of course the standard dogs-enjoying-the-shade photo.