August 2013

Here it is August 27!  I can't believe it's been over a month since I wrote on this blog.  Soooooo much has of course happened in the garden since my last post in July.  The garlic and onions have been harvested, and a row of new seedlings now occupy the old onion bed.   The cucumbers and beans have flourished and are already on the decline.  The corn is tall, not too many ears, but tonight I ate the first ear--good tasting although one side was missing several kernels, meaning incomplete pollination.  Pumpkins are growing--I think I've counted about 7 nice sized pie pumpkins, most of which are already orange, and a couple of little ones.    But I think that's all that will grow because the new pumpkin flowers have LOTS of bugs! Lots of cucumbers, but I cut one last week, which wasn't at all ripe, so I'm waiting on the rest---I read that the area where the stem meets the melon should turn brown and crusty looking instead of soft and green.  I'm excited to say there are 3 watermelons...not quite ripe, I think.  The apples almost ripened, but were grabbed up by the campers very quickly.  I cut back the gangly spreading all over lemon balm---I think I need to get it out of the garden and grow it around the stump like the other mints.  I also cut back the huge tarragon bush and the dill that was going to seed.   And the tomatoes are now coming.  They got stalled during the cool weather of late July and early August, but are ripening quickly now in the 90 degree heat.  And I'm thrilled to say that the newly planted cilantro is growing at just the right time for tomatoes (used lots of both in the salsa class I taught yesterday---we picked the tomatoes and salsa, and also basil for pesto, in the garden, and then went down to the Anderson Center to make the salsa and pesto.  16 students.  )  Earlier this week I finally got the strawberry runners cut back and the older withered leaves pulled off---long overdue care of the strawberry bed.   We've had a small crop of grapes, now done, and the raspberries have zillions of unripe berries, but only a few ripen each day.  And that's a month's worth of garden news.  Now for some photos:

Garlic pulled and ready to hang!

Cucumber and corn growing fast

Paths around asparagus all weeded and woodchipped

Cantaloupe and watermelon patch

Lemon balm cut down

Tall corn!



Cucumbers!  Two batches of pickles made.



Lots of cantaloupes, slow to ripen, vines dying, maybe too much watering



7 pumpkins!



The garden from the south end, starting with the pumpkin patch

The garden from the north end, starting with the strawberry patch

Tomato press from mary Kirby...so cool...makes sauce before cooking, separates out the seeds and skins.  Then I boiled it down about halfway and froze several pkgs.

Radishes

Cilantro.  So happy that this second planting is well timed with the tomatoes ripening.  Used it in salsa making class this week.

Finally cut the strawberry runners..patch looks so tidy now!




Tomatoes finally ripening, rapidly in this 90+ degree F heat.

 


New plantings (in previous onion bed).  Cilantro, parseley, basil, radish, red beet, sunflowers.
Red cabbage and zinnias did not come up.



An invasion of bugs on pumpkin flowers!

July 19: Everything growing so fast in heatwave!

90 degree F temperatures all week.  Watering everyday to keep up with the evaporation!  But the result is amazing growth.  In the ten days since I last blogged,, so much has happened!
First of all, we weeded and freshly woodchipped most of the paths and the fruit beds.
Here's the path by the tomato plants, which now have small green tomatoes!

Also managed finally to get the area around the asparagus weeded and the asparagus corralled with a rope fence so that it doesn't hang all over the ground.   And got a trellis built for the cucumbers, just in time, as their vines are growing wildly longer each day--the first cucumber was 3 in log yesterday, 5 inches today!  At that rate, it will be ready to pick in 2 more days! 

 

                                                                             

The carrots and zuchinis are growing rapidly too.  A week ago I saw the first tiny zuchini, and now look at the too-big zuchinis that I picked yesterday and today!   BEans are going gangbusters too.  I've picked 10 pounds of beans--most are already in the freezer!  

 

July 9: Colorful herbs, beans, and RR ties

The colorful herbs are sooooo beautiful.
Dill in the foreground. 
Purple lavender.
Pink bergamot.
Yellow calendula marigolds.

The first string beans!

Dan, Jeremy, Bobbie, and Daryl came over and moved RR ties on the edges of the black plastic tarp I had laid under the wood chip pile.   Then I spread out the chips to fill the RR tie "box" they'd made.   There's still a pile of chips in the middle for spreading onto the main path through the garden.  My idea is to have a big weedfree area where the pumpkin vines can spread out without being in the way of teh lawn mowers.   Plus I want to plant some other vining plants in pots on the woodchips. 

July 7: Nasturtiums, sweet potatoes, a trellis, and weeded onions



A crown of nasturtium jewels!




Some heavy duty weeding made the onion and garlic beds look great!



A new experiment!  Sweet potato vine growing from the chunk of sw. potato I planted!

Made a trellis of old willow sticks for the cucumbers.  And the corn is knee high!  I planted squash and pole beans with 3 of the corn plants...the "three sisters" Native American tradition.

July 2: Day Campers with radishes, onions, lettuce

The day campers picked radishes, onions, and lettuce, plus dug manure and planted calendulas. 

June 27: Blueberries, grapes, corn, cukes herbs, and potatoes

So excited to find first few blueberries ripe...and grapes are growing bigger each day--just need to turn purple now!

Kayli and her Fawn 2 girls cut the tall stalks of sorrel and lovage so now the herb garden looks so much neater!

 And Connor and the Hawk's Nest boys brought up a dozen or so buckets of old manure to put around the potato plants, after we found a few spuds breaking the surface of the ground and turning green,  so we needed to bury them deeper.

Last weekend I finally got the old strawberry bed dug up and the cucumbers and corn I'd planted in the greenhouse on June 6 planted into the ground, in holes in landscape fabric I laid down.  (I cut the fabric and marked the holes with chalk and cut them on a table, before laying the fabric int he garden.  A much easier way than I've done before!)   Monday's super storm messed it up a bit but I was able to move it back into position.  (Also blew the cover off the greenhouse!)   Lots of rain this week so everything is growing like crazy!

June 23: Woodchips, lavender, garlic scapes, and the first raspberry!

After I moved the black plastic tarp from the top of the garden to the lawn at the bottom and the woodchips got dumped on it because the truck couldn't safely make it up the incline at the top of the garden, I bought another $32 piece of black plastic, laid it at the top of the garden, and Dan and Jeremy used the bucket tractor to move all the chips to the top of the garden where i wanted them.   My plan is to have a big woodchipped area there, with a pile of woodchips to use throughout the summer and into next spring perhaps.   The campers and I started putting them on the permanent garden paths (I've measured out the garden into permanent 4 foot wide plots and 2 foot wide paths).  It makes the garden look so meat, and now it's easier to tell the kids:  only walk on the woodchips!

As you can see, the tomatoes are growing rapidly in this heat.   The big bush on the left is tarragon.  Kay's junior farmers helped me put in some tarragon transplants that I'd dug a month ago into the back of the herb garden...my plan is to do away with this big bush of tarragon once the new ones get well established---probably by next summer, maybe this fall.

The herbs are growing beautifully.   The basil is also loving the heat!  The calendula at the front of the herb garden are floweing...all yellow so far, no orange yet.  The towering sorrel and lovage flower stalks are getting cut down this week.    Next the to herb garden is a row of carrots (in the box), 1 zuchine hill, peppers, brocolli, swiss chard, beets, and radish.   the farm campers helped to plant more radishes, and pull a few, and to put in more of Amy's pepper seedlings.  Behind them, you can see, the beans are growing abundantly.

The lavender is beautiful!

 The garlic has scapes (seed heads, which we've begun cutting) and I ate the first delicious raspberry....lots more on the way!

The strawberry patch is almost picked out.  The kids made jam again on Saturday, this time with a recipe with much less sugar.   They also made bread (containing some wheat they ground into flour themselves...plus a lot of traditional white flour--we'd tried it with half and half during staff training, and it turned out like a rock!) and they hand-churned cream into butter.  they all said it all tasted great at the camp earthday breakfast this morning.   Camp has a special focus on ehalthy food this summer.   The SOL campers went to a strawberry farm and picked strawberries on Saturday, and also went to 2 farmers markets and bought delicious green peppers and cantaloupes.