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.

Cleaning Up With New Dirt

written by Yvonne

It's already August which means some of the Spring plantings need to get pulled to make way for Fall crops. Here you can see the cucumbers have been eaten alive and are ready to pull. We got a nice amount of cucumbers from these two plants this summer.

The okra will stay in for now, especially since it hasn't produced anything yet.

Just as in the last two years, we definitely have tomatoes, they are just coming in WAY later than everyone else's. And this year we even started them in pots. Nonetheless, we're getting a nice large batch of 'em.

And a few are even starting to ripen!

And this would be your standard HUGE squash plants...

and the annual squash blossom beauty shot.

As far as the herbs go, the dill is super spindly and not producing enough fronds to use. No parsley ever came up. Basil is finally here and being put to good use. And of course more oregano than even Lidia Bastianich can use.

Three very small, stunted pepper plants are hanging on...

and they do shows signs of producing peppers. If these actually turn into peppers, it may qualify for the world's smallest pepper plant.

Tom has been composting food scraps and yard waste for several years now and we decided it was time to put the compost to use. He cut back lots of vines that had grown all around and into the bins while I cut back low-hanging tree branches to make easier work of scooping out the compost. The green monster you see on the left is a squash plant growing out of one of the bins.

Tom emptied out two compost bins to spread over three of the beds. We've had eight compost bins for a while now but we really only use the front four so Tom dismantled two of and we'll concentrate on using just four from here on out.  Honey helped by running like a crazy dog around the beds.

Next you'll see the stages of what we did to each beds.  Bed #1 before.

Bed #1 with compost.

Tom picked up a load of dirt on Friday so we'd be ready to go Saturday filling the beds with new soil.

Bed #1 with new dirt.

Bed #2 before.

Bed #2 with all cow and crowder peas pulled out and compost added.

Bed #2 with dirt added.

Bed #3 with LOTS of grass, one dwarf okra plant (that's what the variety is actually called) and three dwarf pepper plants (not an actual variety, just a description).

Bed #3 with weeds pulled, compost added and topped with new dirt.

Bed #4 is chock full of tomatoes so....

we just pulled the dead cucumber plants and the Swiss chard. I got a good harvest from the chard then ditched all the bug-eaten leaves and pulled up the plants.

When pulling the cucumber plants, these two baseball-bat sized cucumbers were attached to the ends. Tom wants to cut them up and bury them to see if they'll grow. After shoveling compost and dirt for a good while, we were too tired to do any more so we thought this would do for now.

Dirt is all out of the truck. "Ok dogs, let's go for a ride back to the carport!  Olive/Honey place. Good girl Olive. Honey, Place. Place. Place"

"PLACE. HONEY, PLACE!"

Saving Seeds and Waitin' for Tomatoes

written by Yvonne

All of these photos are several weeks old now but I thought I'd post them anyway. We've been harvesting cow and crowder peas like crazy.  We haven't actually eaten any of them yet, we're just shelling them and letting them dry.

FINALLY the basil came up! Not really enough to do anything with yet but at least there is one plant.  Maybe there will be enough for one margherita pizza and one batch of pesto. Please, please let there be enough for one batch of pesto!

This is either cilantro or flat-leaf parsley. Come on little plant; grow! I'm tired of buying you at the store.

A TY Veggie Patch summer staple - squash.

And again - FINALLY tomatoes have appeared. They are all green still but they're finally here.

Everything you see here is tomatoes. These big plants better be puttin' out big quantities of tomatoes.

If memory serves, last year I was disappointed with the size and quantity of pepper plants that, but by the end of summer we had more peppers than we knew what to do with. I'm in that same place again. Only two very small plants have come up. Hopefully they'll produce a lot.

This is what, the fourth or fifth time we've attempted to plant something in this spot?  This is REALLY the last time we're attempting this. If the squash and hibiscus plants Tom planted here don't 'take', that's it for this area. Although we did just buy clover seeds to use as ground cover for the bees so maybe Tom can spread some here and see how it goes.

We're comfortable enough now with our garden knowledge and skills to start saving seeds from the produce we grow. One of the advantages of growing heirloom varieties is that you can replant the seeds year after year. We've done that with a few items but this year Tom has really committed to saving seeds from everything possible so we don't have to buy more seeds. So far this year he's saved seeds from crowder and cow peas, pole and bush beans, and cucumbers. Next will be tomatoes and peppers (assuming we get any peppers).

Unfortunately we weren't as inundated with cucumbers this year as in the past two years, but we certainly got a good amount. At the point we were picking one or two cucs every day, I remember making refrigerator pickles last year so I pulled out the recipe and made a couple of quarts. I know I said this last year but they taste JUST like Claussen's. YUM!