What Color is Spring? Green!

written by Yvonne

Why do weeds grow so well in winter? I guess the berries grew too, you just can't see them because they are surrounded by weeds. Time to hand pull and ton of junk from the brambles.

Before (left side of bed).

After.

Before (right side of bed).

After. I didn't quite finish this side but it's good for now. Talk about A LOT of work!

Olive and Honey were big help in the yard as always. As I cleared a spot of weeds, Olive would lay in that spot. It warmed up nicely as the day progressed so I took off my socks and continued weeding. As you can see Honey found those socks and brought them to a patch that hadn't been weeded yet. Guess she wanted to ensure that I knew this area still needed to be worked on.

Lettuce still producing very well...

as is spinach.

And again this week collards were harvested - five bags worth...

and four bags of lettuce and spinach.

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!

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!

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.

Growing, Growing, Growing!

written by Yvonne

These beets made it all the way through a very cold winter, now it's time to eat 'em up. These few small beets produced two bags worth of greens. In addition, I harvested another three bags of spinach.

These are the beets still left in the ground. They've started to bolt so they'll be pulled up this week.

I planted bed #4 full of seeds right before winter hit and crossed my fingers that some would "take" but most didn't. Everything you see here is grass/weeds. Tom did a superb job of tilling the soil and getting the bed ready for summer plantings.

Hey look!  A few carrots did grow after all. They got thrown in with the beets and a few red potatoes, some garlic, purple onion, and asparagus for an oven-roasted root veg dinner Sunday night. Yum!

Once he tilled up the bed, he stuck in a couple of cages in and plated the three cucumber plants that were started in pots. At the very end of the bed (where you can see green) there is some Swiss chard coming up. We haven't been able to put hay down around the chard yet because it's hard to tell what is chard and what is weeds. The chard, however, is just now getting big enough that we'll be able to snuff out those weeds soon.

The rest of the photos are general updates on our Spring plantings:

Pole beans and bush beans.

One of these is broccoli and one is cabbage.

Crowder peas.

Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce

Spinach and kale.

Snap peas and snow peas.

BERRIES that are now starting to flower.

This is that one spot where we've attempted several things but had no luck. Tom planted some volunteer tomatoes here last year and they did good for a while, but ultimately the cold got to them so we don't know for a fact that tomatoes would grow here.  This year we're trying out two very hardy vegetables that grow very well in the beds, but take up a lot of space. On the left we planted okra and on the right is one straight-neck squash seedling and some black beauty squash seeds.  It will be great if these do well here because it would save us room in the beds.

And as usual, the dogs enjoyed their day in the garden with us.  :)

If you want to keep up with this year's bee news, be sure to go to www.tsbeeshoney.com. Doesn't look like there will be any honey for sale this year. As "urban farmers" we are at the whims of nature and that means sometimes we'll have success and sometimes not.