The summer harvest season is here. All the time and effort is paying off in delicious ways.

MAIN GARDEN AREA

Squash. That pretty much sums up what we’re getting from the main garden right now.

In a separate bed, but still in the main garden, are more squash & pumpkins. I planted these later than the first batch, but I think we’ll still get to harvest them before the first frost.

There is a handful of other things in varying stages in the garden, as well.

Raspberries! At the beginning of July, the raspberries were quite plentiful. A couple times I went to the garden for other tasks and came back with a shirt full of raspberries because I just couldn’t resist. By the end of July, the raspberries are mostly gone, but we are still getting a few.

FRUIT TREES

The plums were green at the beginning of July. But, now almost a month later they are ripe and delicious.

We have one apple tree that is so full of apples the tree can’t support them. I will happily take this problem. Our fruit trees, in general, have not done well over the years. I’m thrilled we will have more than one or two apples to munch on.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

The tomatoes, Mexican sour gherkins, and Asian eggplants have gone bonkers in the greenhouse.

HERBS

Much of last year’s sage in the main garden has already grown, flowered, and gone to seed. Farm Kid2 collected some of the seed.

The herb barrels are doing well. The parsley, especially, is growing almost faster than I can harvest and use or preserve. I didn’t tend to the cilantro well enough and much of it has flowered and gone to seed. So, I planted more and will hopefully stay more on top of harvesting it. I also planted more basil, since much of the basil didn’t transplant well.

I have never grown tarragon until now. I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of the flavor. But, I do love its flowers.

In the herb barrels are also a couple non-herbs – tomatoes and peppers. At this time, the best growing pepper is called Ancho Tiburon.

BOUNTY

Bounty in these pics:
Lavender – Harvested. Hung to dry. And now placed in a jar waiting to become sachets or soap.
Red Tomatoes – Turned into marinara with onions from the garden and herbs from the patio herb barrels.
Yellow Cherry Tomatoes – Just for snacking
Mexican Sour Gherkins – Also, for snacking
Kale – Let’s be honest. I’m not a fan of kale. I fed it to the chickens. In exchange I collected their beautiful, scrumptious eggs.
Raspberries – Devoured
Parsley – This batch was used in potato salad and the rest was frozen in oil to use at another time.
Squash/Zucchini – The majority of the squash has been blanched and frozen. The larger one were given to the chickens. And, some were made into zoodles.
Calendula – Picked. Dried. Now sitting in grape seed oil. Later I will transform the calendula/grape seed oil into a salve.

What fresh items are you harvesting?

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Thankfully, we had a mild spring. So, planting the garden early worked out perfectly. Everything has gotten off to a fabulous start. Some things are even ready to enjoy.

MAIN GARDEN AREA

Well, it’s not our most beautiful garden. Parts of it are horribly overgrown. It needs weeded. But, the majority of the produce is growing well.

Zucchini

In a separate bed, I recently planted rows of squash, pumpkins, and gourds.

Since I started the herbs early in the greenhouse, the cilantro has already flowered… oops. It will need to plant more seed. I love cilantro.

The raspberries are starting to ripen. Yay!

Some of the lettuce and kale could already be cut.

The tomatoes have lovely, yellow flowers. This is the beginning of my impatient waiting for the onset of glorious, red tomatoes.

This was fun to watch. One cedar waxwing shared its red berry with its friend.

FRUIT TREES

Apples and plums are doin’ their growing thing.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

In the greenhouse we have tomatoes at varying stages, an Asian eggplant is flowering, lettuce and kale are ready, Mexican sour gherkins are ready to be picked, and a few beans are making an appearance.

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We took a risk last month and planted our summer garden. So far so good. The weather has cooperated and everything is growing well… including the weeds.

THE MAIN GARDEN AREA

Lots of greens, beets, radishes, onions, tomatoes and herbs growing.

HERBS

Over grown sage in the garden.

A variety of herbs growing nicely in the greenhouse.

I put together three herb gardens in old barrels and set them on our patio. Most items transplanted well, but the basil was not impressed with the move. I have intentions of blogging about them later.

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This is about a month earlier than our normal, but we planted the garden. At least, part of it. I had many plants started and ready to be moved outside and the weather seems to be cooperating, so we gave it a whirl. So far, so good.

Even with the pigs being in part of the garden for awhile, it is still a weedy mess.

Farmer John tilled a small section in the garden for our first phase of planting.

Many of my tomato, kale, and herb starts were planted. The kids also planted a few things like radishes, beets, and watermelon.

The good news – 2 weeks in the garden and all my plants are doing well. The bad news – the weeds are doing well, too.

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September is nearly over and our garden is coming to a close for the year. This wasn’t our most prolific gardening season, but we managed to enjoy a bit of home grown goodies.

OUR GARDEN

WEEDS
Let’s just be honest. The garden has far more weeds growing in it than edible produce.

However, there are still a few goodies growing between the weeds.

EGGPLANT & KALE

POTATOES & ONIONS
We dug up the potatoes and onions and set them out to dry for a few days.

PUMPKINS
I picked all the little pumpkins. Eventually I’ll get around to setting up something pretty for the fall holidays.

I left the Cinderella & Atlantic Giant pumpkins in the garden.

What’ s up with this scrawy, thing? Too little, too late there fella.

GARDEN VISITORS
A whole flock of Golden-crowned sparrows spend most of their day in the garden. I don’t blame them. There’s a ton for them to snack on.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

Eggplant, Mexican sour gherkins, swiss chard, okra, tomatoes and peppers are growing in the greenhouse.

FRUIT TREES & GRAPES

We have a couple wimpy apple trees that we’ve gotten a few apples from this year. They’re delicious.

Our 2 grape vines are doing well. The kids have picked quite a few grape clusters. I don’t love this variety, but the rest of the family eats them.

I think that’s about it for the garden this year. We missed the time to plant for a fall garden. Darn it. That works out ok, though. We’re going to move a combination of pigs, goats, chickens and/or ducks to the garden to clean up our mess. They’ll love it. And, we won’t have quite as much to do come spring. Win, win for all of us.

The post How Our Garden Grows – September 2015 appeared first on .

It seems a little strange that it’s already the end of August and we haven’t done much preserving of our our garden harvests. We didn’t plant a ton of zucchini this year. So, we have enough to eat, but not a never ending supply. Other squash and cucumbers are the same way. I had hoped to can salsa and marinara, but we didn’t have much luck with tomatoes this year. We did can 37 quarts of peaches, but the peaches weren’t from our orchard. Our herbs are doing well, but I haven’t preserved them like I should have. There are lots of onions & potatoes that will need pulled soon. Maybe we’ll have time to preserve a few things now that summer is winding down.

OUR GARDEN

THREE SISTERS
The beans went crazy and produced lots this month. Many of the pumpkins and gourds are looking great. But, the corn is only doing so-so.

KALE & CUCUMBERS

TOMATOES
Top: Our tomato plants this year haven’t done too well, but we are getting some red tomatoes.
Bottom: Many yellow cherry tomato plants reseeded or regrew from plants last year. However, they’re growing in a very weedy spot of the garden, making them difficult to pick.

SQUASH

AND MORE
Left: One lone sunflower grew out of the hundreds of seeds I planted.
Right: An entire section of the garden is a weedy mess. Boo! What a waste of space. We just haven’t had the time to keep up.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

Produce in the greenhouse is doing very well. We’re getting eggplant, Mexican sour gherkins, okra, peppers, ground cherries, & tomatoes.

BERRIES, GRAPES & FRUIT TREES

Top: The grapes are doing fantastic.
Bottom: We’ve picked only a couple ripe apples. When I think of apple trees, I think of old trees covered in apples – so many they’re falling off the branches. We don’t have that.
Not pictured: The only berries we’re getting are wild blackberries. They’re a blessing and a curse. They are delicious. But, they are invasive & thorny.

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We’ve had a handful of cooler weather, but for the most part it has continued to be hot. The garden is taking full advantage of this. Here’s how things are looking this month:

OUR GARDEN

ONIONS
Lots of onions. Red, Yellow & Walla Walla. We’ve harvested a few already.

TOMATOES
All the tomato plants in the garden are the shrimpiest things. Normally they grow so wild I think we need something better than tomato cages to hold them. This year, though, they are barely 2 feet tall. Weird. Not enough water, maybe?
We have eaten a few red tomatoes, and they taste fine.

THREE SISTERS
The pumpkins, squash, and beans are growing like crazy in our three sisters plot. The corn, though, has taken cues from our tomatoes and are staying short. We had this same short corn problem last year…

AND MORE
Eggplant, kale & an odd shaped zucchini

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

The greenhouse has been producing a few goodies, click here to find out more.

BERRIES, GRAPES & FRUIT TREES

The grapes are coming on.
Plums are just now ripe and delicious.
There are a few apples nearly ready for picking.
And, the raspberry picking is slowing down.

The post How Our Garden Grows – July 2015 appeared first on .

It has been an odd June. Super hot. We don’t typically get 90º temperatures until July. I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing this has been one of the hottest June’s in recent history. The garden is loving it & growing like crazy.

OUR GARDEN

Our garden on June 1st.
It looks quite different now at the end of the month.

Ironically, the deer tore down the deer fencing surrounding our garden…
Thankfully, they didn’t do much damage except eat few raspberries & who can blame them.

Tomatoes & Eggplant
I am not sure we have ever had tomatoes this far along at the end of June. I’m sure it’s due to the hot temps we are getting early in the season.

THREE SISTERS

In the back of the garden we are trying a three sisters combination: pumpkins/gourds, beans & corn. Part of it is working, but not quite as well as we had hoped. I had to replant many of the pumpkins and gourds due to feathered friends helping themselves to the seed I originally planted. The beans are growing well… almost too well. The corn hasn’t grown near tall enough for the beans to climb. I’m not too sure yet what we’re going to do about that.

HERB & MORE ROW

My herb row is not amazing. Many of the herbs left in the ground from last year are flowering, which is not what I wanted. I obviously wasn’t on top of it enough to fix that problem. None of my lavender, cucumbers or sunflowers came up. I’m pretty sure the hen that kept sneaking under the garden fence had something to do with that. I did replant some if it and the cucumbers seem to be starting nicely. One plant got a weird disease or maybe it wasn’t a fan of the super hot weather. I don’t know, but it’s not a problem we’ve encountered previously.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

From the greenhouse we have been enjoying tomatoes, lettuce & Mexican sour gherkins.

BERRIES & FRUIT TREES

We have picked many, many bowlfuls of raspberries. However, they get eaten so quickly we haven’t preserved any. That’s ok. My favorite is to enjoy them fresh.

Plums coming on

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Going on a 2 week vacation in spring pushed back a bit of our gardening. We got a later start & we didn’t start as many things from seed as we typically do. So, we have a little less planted than most years, but I’m sure we will have plenty to harvest.

Pumpkin & Gourd seeds planted in mounds

The kids getting onion starts in the ground.

Onions

Potatoes & Eggplant

My mostly herb row. In the back, though, I planted cucumbers & sunflowers.

A fairly common site in our garden – a robin catching a worm.

However, this critter was a first for us. Farmer John spotted a rubber boa in the garden. I knew they could possibly be around, but we’ve never seen one… until now.

This is always an exciting time of year planning for a summer harvest!

The post How Our Garden Grows – May 2015 appeared first on .

How does our garden grow? Well, it has come to a complete halt. We haven’t harvested anything for a couple weeks. We didn’t plant a fall garden, so nothing new is coming on.

THE MAIN GARDEN

We moved the spring hatched chicks that are looking to be roosters out to the garden. They have been eating most of what’s left in the garden and also fertilizing the garden rows.

FRUIT TREES

GREENHOUSE & AQUAPONICS

HARVESTING & PRESERVING

Another growing season has come and gone. I’m ok with that. I’m ready for a break. Preparing for next year will be here in just a couple months.

I am so thankful for the good food we grow, but it sure is a lot of work.

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