Farmer Friday

Princepe Borghesi

The cherry tomatoes are beginning to trickle in. The plants are loaded with green fruit but they are taking their own sweet time getting ripe. I think perhaps the fact that our night temperatures cooled off a bit the past couple of weeks has something to do with that.

Elephant Garlic

Elephant garlic is botanically a leek. But it looks and tastes just like a giant garlic. I cleared out an empty bed where some volunteered from a previous crop. A couple of them truly were the biggest I have ever seen, weighing over a pound each. These big plants had a little more space than I normally plant them in, so this fall I will plant my starts as much as 12 inches apart to see if I can grow them all that big. Altogether I pulled 26 pounds of Elephant garlic.

Zinnias and Marigolds

I try to plant different kinds of flowers around the gardens to feed bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, ladybugs and other helpful creatures. I also sell small bouquets at our farmers market.

interesting lizard

 I have a lot of lizards. I don't know all the kinds but have been noticing some pretty colorful ones lately. This picture isn't so good but this guy had a lot of orange on him

Black Tail Mountain Watermelon

While I did trap and relocate one of the squirrels that has been stealing all the green tomatoes, now there is one stealing all the cantaloupes and even eating the vines, So far tho it's left the watermelons alone.

a variety of squash

Last weeks haul of squash was 125 pounds, this week more like 36. Keeping them picked at small sizes helps keep the plants producing.

Black from Tula, a heritage Russian tomato

FINALLY a big tomato! Black from Tula. Was totally delicious!