Aug 8: raspberry patch, broccoli, andzucchoni

Little secondary heads of broccoli

Campers loving the raspberries!

Zucchini stems in trouble!  But the zucchini keep coming!

August 7: pumpkins, beans, potatoes

Lemon Verbena and Stevia--growing for Halloween Tea!

Dug about half of the potatoes!

Dug all the grass and bindweed out of the upper fruit patch around the apple and cherry trees.   Grass and  weeds were all tangled through the landscape fabric.  Really hard work to remove it all.    Prepping the ground for  a new strawberry patch.  

Black turtle beans on right.  Pole beans starting to grow up trellis.  Bush beans on left, with chard and corn in background.

Pumpkins and winter squash.  Vines growing fast and long!

Cucumbers and more cucumbers!

July 31: abundant summer growth and blossom end rot'

Yuck! Blossom end rot on some tomatoes!

Potatoes and Tomatoes

Overgrown mint bed.   Need to cut back!
Lush cucumber vines making lots of fruit
Just a few apples this year
Butternut Squash!
Pumpkins!

July 25: Better frozen veggies.

Before removing air

After removing air

Learned a new trick today for removing more of the air from bags of blanched veggies before freezing.  Just insert a straw into the bag before finishing sealing and suck the air out.   Nifty!  Should help them stay fresher!

July 25: Pickles!

Campers helped pick cucumbers this morning and then I helped them make a batch of pickles for the camps next meal.  But there were so many cucumbers ripe.  Marge Krueger took some home to make pickles and so did Bill and also me. Plus there were a bunch to take over to the lodge kitchen.  Here's the pickles- to-be cooking on my stove and the finished jars of pickles after being in the canner.  

July 24: herb class!

Herb class today.  Began in the garden picking herbs 

Jean Catania snapped this photo after we went into the Anderson Center for the remainder of the class. Ten students. All so enthusiastic!   Most said they've been growing herbs but didn't know how to use them. We made bundles of thyme and savory and rosemary to dry. Plus bundles of bouquet garni. Then herbal vinegar with the purple basil and little cups of chopped chives, basil, and parsley to fill with water at home and freeze.  Then we crushed herbs I'd put in the dehydrator on Friday and made teabags of chamomile and tea bags of lemon verbena, stevia, and cinnamon.  Lastly we made peppermint foot bags for a refreshing foot soak!  Great class.  

July 22: super long super sweet carrot!

Farm campers helped pull onions and carrots this week.   Here is the longest carrot:  

It's long and skinny and very sweet. Supersnax variety. 

July 15: cucumbers and more!

So many cucumbers coming in so fast!   I've made 2 batches of pickles and taken lots of cucumbers to The Center kitchen.

Quite a trunk full of vegetables!  Beets, turnips, carrots, and a few potatoes in middle.   Clockwise from front:  Yellow summer squash, the first yellow apples, cucumbers, chard, yellow and green beans, zucchini!

July 11: garlic!

Farm camp boys helped pull all the garlic today!

July 6: Alissa's micro greens and abundant growth in the garden!

Alissa Dahlgaard (a 2016 Children's Farm Garden Guide) has started her new Farmer in the Dell microgreen business. She was at the Palos Heights Farmers' Market doing a brisk business on this debut day for her new business!  Hooray Alissa!

Just like last year.  Something eats the first head of lettuce. Rabbits I suppose??  But this yer didn't get too much!
I started digging out the comfrey from behind the compost bin where we hang the tools.  Huge woody roots.   I finished in 2 days, but doubt that I got it all.  I think I'll plant sunflowers there.  Wait a year or two before planting another perennial there, since it will be easier to see the comfrey I missed.
Corn plants look wonderful  We are way ahead of the knee high by the 4th of July standard!  Garlic and onions looking about ready to pull.
 Kale, cabbage, broocoli in bed 5 (far right).  Potatoes in bed 6 (middle).  Tomatoes in bed 7.
Cucumbers growing fast!
Squashes growing fast too.  

Herb garden looking great!  Pink are Bergamot.  Tall purple spikes on left are licorice mint.  Both great for tea.  Yellow and a few orange Calendula line the inside path of the garden.  Eible petals to add color to salad, salsa, etc.

June 10-17: killdeers fledged out of the onion patch

The killdeers seemed to have hatched and left the nest, at least that's what we hoped happened.  I had estimated their "due date" to be June 9.  There were still 4 eggs on July 8, no sign of them on July 10.  This is the empty nest.  Very weedy since we haven't wanted to disturb them by weeding near their nest.

But this is the weeded onion patch now that we could get near it!

June 27: hello apples, goodbye strawberries

Always love it when the pink bergamot begins to bloom in the herb garden!   It's leaves make a tea that tastes like Earl Grey.   The yellow flowers along the garden path are calendula, whose petals are edible.

I told so many people that I was having trouble finding stevia plants this year that now I have 11!
Thanks friends!


Rich helped me cut down the strawberry plants int he first bed.
We found a total of 2 berries in the whole bed!
 It really was time to say goodbye to strawberry season!



Three new apple trees planted by the campers on Sunday!  The one in the foreground is a Honeycrisp.  The two in the rear are red delicious, which I always reject at the store, but perhaps they will taste better fresh?  Anyway, the trees were donated, and I suspect the campers will love them.

Cauliflower..not too impressive looking, but it's my first ever cauliflower, so I'm proud of it!

Bill did a great job last week weeding.  The garden looks so great this year, since we've kept up with the weeding and roped (actually "stringed") off each bed and wood-chipped the paths.  The dark soil strip is where we just planted our third installment of beans.  Hoping to have a long stretch of beans ripening this summer and fall. 

June 25: strawberry jam class

Had 11 students making strawberry jam on Saturday in the farm kitchen!  

June 24: end of the peas, but here come the beans!

The peas are getting past their prime.  I tried leaving some last week so the summer campers could taste them, but I think it's about time to pull them and plant pole beans.

But the first row of bush beans are flowering so it won't be long before we can eat beans instead of peas!

And a few of the tomato plants already have fruit...and they all have tons of flowers.

June 17. Farm and nature preschoolers in the strawberry patch!

The preschool summer kids came up to the garden and picked strawberries.  Yum!