June 12, 2013: Camp Staff in the Garden

The farm camp counselors and CITS worked in the garden with me today.   What a great team they were!

 Kayli and William and Maria weeded the extremely weedy garlic and onion patch and then cut the flower stalks off the onions.  They tasted the flower buds and decided to collect them to eat!
Rachel and Kaylin and Michaela weeded the lettuce/pea beds and potatoes and pulled off all the willows branches that had sprouted from the willow trellis.

  

 

Connor and Titiana wired the young apple trees to 3 t-posts, threading the wire through some old pieces of hose so that we wouldn't hurt the trees.  Then they planted cantaloupe and watermelon seedlings to replace the ones that had died, and also planted one hill of pie pumpkin seeds.  Then they picked another 4 quarts strawberries (from the new bed) which we all ate for lunch

Last night I made another batch of strawberry jam from the 3 quarts of strawberries I picked yesterday from the old bed, plus froze 2 small packages of berries. 

I've been trying to keep track of the berry harvest.  So far I think we've picked 8 quarts from the new bed and 9 quarts from the old bed (so glad I didn't dig it up yet----and the cucumbers and corn are sprouting in the greenhouse just waiting their turn to be part of the garden, after the old strawberry patch is dug up) The old bed's production will end in a week or so.  I hope the new bed will produce for a few more weeks--I'd love to stillhave berries for the 4th of July!. 

Strawberries!!!!

 

Picked 5 quarts of strawberries yesterday (3 quarts of big berries from new patch, 2 quarts of small berries from old patch) and then 2 more quarts today (small ones from old patch---didn't even touch new patch today!)  They are sweet and tender, not woody like berries from the store, and not sour.  I have 2 or 3 with everymeal!  Tonight the camp counselors made 4 pints of strawberry jam from 2+ quarts of the small berries...yum!  Supposedly I was teaching them to make jelly, bread, butter, pickles, salsa, herb tea, and dried apples and raisins tonight.  But in reality, they are a terrific staff and just jumped right in, read the recipes, and didn't need much guidance at all....I think that's a pretty good predictor of a great summer of camp ahead of us!

June 6: The Fruit Garden

The fruit garden was created by Conor Johnson as his Eagle Scout project in Oct. 2011.  He cleared the area, and built rasied beds with railroad ties, then filled the beds with a layer of newspaper and well rotted manure.  That fall we planted blueberries and raspberries.  Last summer, we added grapes, strawberries, and dwarf apple trees.  And covered everything with landscape fabric and woodchips.  In 2012, there were a precious few strawberries, blueberries, and grapes, no apples, and quite a few raspberries.  This year, there's LOTS of everything on the way!  Here's one of the two grape vines; they have several clusters of tiny immature grapes already!

(Correction, added 6/7:  Realized today that I was not seeing grape clusters, but rather clusters of flower buds, because today I noticed their pollen stamens.  Hopefully, they get pollinated and so that the grape clusters will be next!)

 The dwarf apple trees had lots of blossoms and now tiny apples are forming!  I did a little research and found that we should remove some of the apples to give the little trees a chance to get stronger.

 The blueberries have been a challenge as they are supposed to have acidic soil.  We've layed pine needles on four times already, and each June have cooked up the lemon rinds from SummerFarmFest's lemon shakeup concession and added the "tea" to the bushes. 

Lemon Rinds!

Last year we also grew cantaloupe and one teeny watermelon in the raspberry patch.  This year I started some from seed but they didn't make it.  So I've bought some seedlings and will add a couple of cantaloupe, watermelon, and a hill of pie pumpkins to the vacant end of the long apple bed.

The strawberries are abundant and delicious!  Since I don't want to dig up the old patch for a couple of weeks, i.e. until we harvest all its berries, I planted corn and cucumbers in flats in the greenhouse today, so they won't get such a late start after we dig up the strawberry patch.

June 5: Herbs!

The perennial herbs have grown so big in the past 2 weeks!

The tallest is french sorrel.  I need to keep cutting it!  To its right is Lovage, also starting to flower. 

And to its left are the chives, with their darling ball-shaped purple flowers. 

The green leafy mass in the foreground is all lemon balm, which I have already cut back and dug lots of out of the garden this spring.  To the far left, just out of the above photo is the sage, shown below, with gorgeous purple flowers.

June 5: Veggies growing abundantly!

The beans are up!

 The chard is growing well and is delicious sautéed in olive oil with asparagus, onions, garlic, and mushrooms!

Tomatoes aren't growing too fast.  I know they'd like it to be warmer.  They're planted on black landscapefabric as a weed barrier.  Waiting for woodchip delivery to hold down the edges and mark the paths between.

 

 The lettuce is magnificent!  Peas are slow are sparse.  Too late to plant more.  The willow sticks I cut and used as a trellis support are all sprouting!  Weeds are growing too!

 The potatoes were slow to start but now are growing like crazy...I counted about 45 plants!  Need to be weeded!

June 4: Strawberries and Asparagus

June 4, 2013:  SO much has grown since I last posted two weeks ago on May 23.  When I look at the photos from then, compared to now, I am amazed!  Most importantly, I have finally managed to weed the two awful perennial plots at the top of the garden--the asparagus and the 2010 strawberry patch.  "Weed" is a relative word here----since I was working around the plants---the asparagus because despite the weeds, it's bountiful year after weedy year, and the strawberries, because even thought I intend to dig them up and plant corn and cucumbers, I couldn't bear to destroy them right as they were about to bear luscious red berries.  So I'll plant the corn and cukes int he greenhouse in pots, and wait 2-3 weeks to dig up the plot!  Here's the strawberry plot now:

These strawberries from the old plants look --and taste--so good!  Of course, compared to the new strawberry plot's abundance, these are few in number.   There are so so many on the way in the new plot.  Here's an example:

The asparagus was a much bigger challenge.   The plot is perhaps 7 years old.   It is totally intertwined with tough tough grass and huge dandelions, plus bindweed and other assorted weeds.   The weeds have grown HUGE in the past 2 weeks as I've been busy getting the rest of the garden planted.   And if I dig, I hurt the asparagus roots.  So I mostly broke off the weeds, digging as little as possible.   I didn't take a "before" picutre, but this is halfway through the plot:

And this is when I'm finished!

 I'd love to start over some day with a new asparagus plot, but on the other hand, this one keeps yielding great asparagus.  Every day or two I pick another dozen spears.

     So much more is happening in the garden, but posts and more photos will have to wait a day or two...

May 23: Hot then cold temps, but so much growing!!

The past 2 weeks have included a number of 80 or even 90 degree days, but also some really chilly weather, including a low predicted tonight of 40 degrees.  I have all the warm weather plants in, so covered the basil tonight and a few of the tomatoes and peppers.   Here's what the basil looks like tonight, covered with cardboard boxes!

When I worked on the herb garden last week, I found a lot of self-seeded calendula from last fall, and moved them all to one area at the front of the herb garden.  I love these yellow and organge pot marigolds that are supposed to keep bugs from other plants, and also are edible garnishes, but I didn't want them growing in among all the other herbs.:

this is a view of the garden from the northeast, showing how big and beautiful the strawberry plants are---they have lots of flowers, and just this week, I see lots of small green strawberries!   The photo also shows the foot tall garlic and the huge stand of tarragon! 

The three westmost blueberry bushes (that Breda planted)  have lots of flowers--I'm already overdue for removing some of them so that the plant can get better established before bearing so heavily.   The grapes have tiny berry clusters too!  And the apple trees had lots of blossoms, withered now, but too early to tell if we'll have apples.

The herb garden is looking really nice, with a lot of big perennial herbs plus the new ones I just planted, mostly from Ted's greenhouse, some from my own little seed flats in our own greenhouse.

Also got the tomatoes planted this week, and used tomato cages since we can't get any more willow.

Plus planted the pepper seedlings, radish seeds, nasturtium seedlings,one hill of zuchini seeds, and melon seeds (but until they get their second leaves, I can't tell which they are as the cantaloupe and watermelon seeds were the ones that dumped over in the greenhouse!  Also plants pots of mints by the stump.

And finally the slow slow potatoes are coming up.  Each day I count a few more.  I believe now there are 28 potato plants.  The onions look great, as does the lettuce.  Put in more pea seeds as they seemed to have a poor germination rate.  Red beets are up, and swiss chard is looking great.  Raspberry bushes are growing by leaps and bounds...need to be tied up!  The entire garden needs to be labeled.  I have all the neat pottery placques we made, but need to get them strung up and mounted.   And need to get wire and hoses to tie the apple trees to the stakes.  All in all, the garden looks pretty good, except for the 2 top west plots (the weedy old strawberry bed--to become the corn and cucumber bed, and the grassy asparagus plot.