Looks like it might be a successful Spring

written by Yvonne

Update on: Berries

It is so wonderful to watch the blackberries coming in. They are right next to the driveway so we get to monitor their progress daily.

As you can see, there are lots of them...

AND some of them are turning red!  (This photo makes them seem redder then they are in real life.)

It has been confirmed - we ended up with three blackberry plants and only one raspberry (instead of two of each).  This is the one that looked different from the others and is indeed raspberries.  And guess what...

some of THEM are turning red!!

The blueberries are more like greenberries at the moment.  They're small, but we'll take 'em!

Update on: Seedlings

The largest sprouts in the back are sunflowers. The smaller ones in the front are a variety of wildflowers.

Here we have some melons, and a few peppers.  In the back row are some spring veggies (lettuces and broccoli) that are too late to put out.  They look good here, but it will be far too hot for these guys to survive.

Some herbs are still coming along. Now that we've hit the high 80s/low 90s, these rest of these guys will hopefully start taking off.  If new sprouts don't come up by this weekend, I'll replant.

Some new onion seeds that were planted a few weeks ago have come up.

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.

Update on: Garden

Struggling basil. Plenty of time to start some more so I'm not worried.

Oregano, some of which I used the other day.

Scapes on the tops of our garlic. Last year we harvested them, but didn't know how to use them. I found some recipes and this year, we're using 'em. Basically use them as you would garlic but the flavor will be more mild. My plan? Pesto. If they aren't around long enough for the basil to mature, I'll make a parsley-based petso.

The broccoli and cauliflower are disappointing once again. No signs of the actual vegetable and now that it's hot, we'll have to pull them out soon.  Anyone have tips on growing this stuff?  I suspect we are trying to grow them in the wrong season. I know I said this was the last time I was going to try it, but I think I'll try again for fall/winter.

We'll be eating as much of this in the next week or so as possibly because it too will bolt soon.

Thyme, dill and cilantro are doing fine.

Each week the squash plants seem to double in size.

Even these two squash plants that had been damaged in the cold have sprouted new leaves so I think they're going to be OK as well.

The radishs are just about done. I'll pull the remaining four or five and we'll have those in our salads this week.

Spinach is just barely showing signs of bolting so the race is on to use it up by this weekend.

The largest chard plant on the left has bolted but I think I can get one or two more dishes out of them before pulling them up this weekend.

Marjoram.

Finally looked in our garden layout to see what the heck this is - chamomile!

One okra hanging on (among a ton of weeds).  It won't be long before this becomes a 10 foot tree.

Cow peas (and a lot of weeds) struggling, but still there. One week it looks like it's not going to make it, then new leaves show up.  We'll see what happens.

Last week the first snow pea blossoms showed up and this week...

PEAS!!!  There were enough for a handful to snack on.  The plants aren't nearly as tall as they were last year, but that may be because of the type of trellis we're using this year vs. last.

Carrot tops (and lots of weeds) looking good.

Kale.

Beet greens are looking good, but I noticed some of the bulbs have popped out out of the ground.  I stuck them back in hopes they'll hang on and get bigger.

The sad, yellow thing in the upper right and lower left corners were cucumbers.  Luckily, there are seeds that have spouted in the min-greenhouse so all is not lost.

Cooking, Putting Up, and Other Such Stuff

Dinner last night was sauted chard, garlic, lemon juice, and a can of chick peas tossed with cork-screw pasta and feta.

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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.

If you miss following the progress of the bees, go to Ts Bees Blog. Once there, click on the link in the upper right corner that reads "Subscribe to Ts Bees Blog by email" and you'll get an email when there's a new post. If you'd like to be notified when honey is available for sale, don't forget to fill out the Contact T's Bees form at TsBeesHoney.com.

Not much work done (garden-wise) last weekend

written by Yvonne

Although it was good weather to be outside, this past weekend was spent working on indoor projects (sewing and cartooning). Only thing that managed to get done in the garden was to pull the last head of cabbage (which was used in our fish tacos for dinner Saturday night), and to harvest the remaining collards.

This is a collard flower. Pretty yes, but the distinct sign that the collards are done for the season. Time to pull 'em up and make room for something else.

Last year, we were overrun with spinach - this year, it's collards. Readers may recall that I froze a lot of spinach last year and it got me thinking... why not freeze collards? (It's been SO great grabbing a bundle of our freshly grown, pre-measured, 10oz bundles of spinach from the freezer when needed.)

I played hooky from taking Yoga class today and got to work on the collards.  I de-stemed them and cut them up,

and dunked them in boiling water for 2 minutes,

 then into an ice bath for another minute or so.

 They were drained,

 and weighed to 5oz,

and placed in piles, ready for the freezer.

On another note, something caught my eye as I dove up the driveway yesterday.  Was that a flower on the berry bushes I saw?  Nah, it was probably a spot of bird poop or something.  After finishing up the collards this morning, I decide to take time to investigate... Show 'nuf, it's a flower!

And the berry bushes are FULL of them!  Every flower will turn into a beautiful, yummy black or raspberry.  Here is a single clump that has six!

All the white spots seen here are flowers on the verge of opening.

Holy cow!  I've almost forgotten about the blueberries (probably because they are right next to the bee hives and well, I just view at them from afar.)  Berries are forming even as we speak! Tom says we just have to make sure we get to them before the birds do.

Tomatoes, peppers, onions, some herbs and a few other items are still coming along in pots.

The four squash plants have definitely taken root (they should be ready when you get here Rebecca).

Batch one of radishes (upper right) and batch one of buttercrunch lettuce (lower right) have taken root. You can see the difference in maturity between batch one of radishes and batch two - batch two is to the left of batch one.

Peas and carrots.

If you miss following the progress of the bees, go to Ts Bees Blog. Once there, click on the link in the upper right corner that reads "Subscribe to Ts Bees Blog by email" and you'll get an email when there's a new post. If you'd like to be notified when honey is available for sale, don't forget to fill out the Contact T's Bees form at TsBeesHoney.com.