Harvest Monday

8 pound Northern New Mexico Melon

Hales cantaloupe and Marketmoore cukes

Once again I missed Harvest Monday last week and I'm late this week. Go visit other gardeners around the world and see what they are picking, planting and eating.

N. NM Melon, Armenian and Marketmoore cukes

assorted squash

There have been cucumbers, squashes and melons to pick. the Northern New Mexico melon is an heirloom from the Pueblos. It was sweet and tasty.

Hales, Armenian and Marketmoore

Black Copper Marans cockerel

Olive egger cockerel

Black Copper Marans pullet

tree seedlings

The formatting is all whacky today and I can't seem to fix this page how I want it to display. Oh well, not wasting any more time.  My phone app already lost this whole post and then the PC needed a malware scan and had over 1,000 things. No wonder it's been funky.

I did plant red mustard and turnips in the bed recently vacated by the beans. While prepping the bed for replanting I discovered some tree seedlings. At least a couple are honey locust and so far no thorns. The others have similar but slightly different leaves so I'm no sure what they are. They are now in 1 gallon pots while I wait and see.

So totals for 2 weeks
Harvest for Aug 21-27
8-22
cantaloupe    5# 6 oz
8-23
squash          9#  6 oz
8-24
Big tomatoes   11oz
squash          2#  11oz
Armenian cuke 2# 8oz
beans         1# 8oz
8-25
flat parsley      4oz
rosemary         negligible
sage                1oz
Armenian     5# 9oz
Marketmoore  5# 0oz
Honey Boat delicata  2# 8oz
8-27
squash 30#
8-31
Scarlet kale    2# 9oz
Lancinato      1#  8oz
chard              1# 6 oz
Marketmoore 10# 8oz
9-1 (I can't believe it's Sept!)
squash 30#  0oz
cantaloupe 1# 13oz
N. NM melon  8# 2oz
cherry tomatoes  2# 4oz
Armenian   17# 9oz
Marketmoore   2# 4oz

TOTALS for 2 weeks
melons       15# 5oz
squash        72# 1oz
big tomatoes 11oz
cucumbers   43# 5 oz
beans        1# 8oz
herbs              5oz
delicata      2# 8oz
kale            3# 1oz
chard             1# 6oz
cherry tomatoes 2# 4 oz

TOTAL     141# 14oz

Garden Tour

honeybee on red poppy

Wow there is so much going on in the garden lately! Things are just growing, blooming and going crazy I can't hardly keep up with it all! While harvesting is a bit slim at the moment, it's coming to a tipping point, where I will be over run with things in a very short time.

There are still a few oriental poppies blooming, the bees love them and come get all the pollen as soon as they open in the morning.

All Blue potato blossoms

The potatoes are really blooming now, except the German Butterballs which haven't started yet.

squash & cantaloupe on compost pile

This compost pile, made mostly of horse manure and wood chips was made on the terrace garden to kill a tree stump. In the four corners are Baby Blue Hubbard squash and in the center under the Victorian style cloche (just love that thing!) are sprouting some cantaloupes from Italy. Yes, that's going to be crowded, but I figure over a cubic yard of manure should be able to feed them well.

mushrooms on compost

The other compost pile, built to kill an oleander bush next to the rabbit cages has sprouted a great lot of mushrooms. I think they are inky caps, but I'm not trying them. I don't know enough about fungi to risk killing myself.

squash and ground cherry on top of compost pile

On the top of that pile are three Tromboncinno squash to grow up the fence and shade the rabbits and in the foreground an Aunt Molly's ground cherry which I'm growing for the first time. I suspect it will be much like the wild ground cherries in TX which were sweet and tart at the same time.

Tromboncinno in a tub

This Tromboncinno in the old washing machine tub on the patio is beginning to take off. Keep in mind the house roof here is only about 6 feet off the ground.

1st Princepe

1st Currant tomato

Which tomatoes will be ready first? Princepe or Currants?

back garden overview

The back garden is becoming a jungle, the beds on the left, from front to back, Red Pontiac potatoes, then corn with squash and the bolting Purple Dragon carrots, the next bed is the lettuce and turnips, with hollyhocks on the edge, the next one is Red Burgundy amaranth with bolting lettuce, then the bed of peas across the back. On the right, from front to back, you can see the asparagus fronds that are growing by the apple on the fence, the bed with trellis has bolting lettuce, the next one are the Italian paste tomatoes, then the onions and parsnips and then the bed I just planted with quinoa, beans and amaranth. Remember you can click on any picture to see it larger.

turnip and lettuce bed

This is the lettuce and turnip bed which you last saw in this post. (it's the picture labeled 'new lettuce bed'.)  The lettuce was getting bitter, especially those plants in this now mostly bare area where they got a lot of sun and dried out quickly. So I pulled them out along with some weeds, leaving some volunteer pepper and tomato plants and planted 5 yellow zucchini seedlings. In the back are the turnips along with a bit of lettuce now being over run by volunteer tomatoes. In the front and along the right are volunteer hollyhocks.

tomatoes & basil

The bed of Italian paste tomatoes got 6 basil plants along the sunny end.

Hales Best Jumbo Cantaloupe/Muskmelon

In the greenhouse bed the Hale's Best Jumbo is taking off and beginning to run. I've used strips of old cotton sheets to tie it up. Around it are some nasturtiums, on the left is a Florence Red Bottle onion going to seed. On the right is a patch of Rainbow chard seedlings, on each side of the Rainbow chard are patches of Perpetual Spinach chard which are older. Oh I checked the seed packet, they are labeled Hale's Best Jumbo Muskmelon. Because actually, what we call cantaloupes are actually supposed to be called muskmelons. cantaloupes are a similar but different thing. Americans have a lot of things backwards from the rest of the world. Netted melons are muskmelons and smooth ones are cantaloupes.

squash in the new greenhouse bed

In the newest section of the greenhouse bed are more squash, from front to back, 2 Tromboncinno, 5 Buttercup, 1 Baby Blue Hubbard.

I'm sure you are wondering why so many squash plants? (And I have more seedlings underway, they are in those soil blocks in the tray in this pic). Because first I will be selling at the farmer's market this summer and because second squash, especially winter keepers will make good food for me and the chickens this winter. I'm hoping that by next year perhaps I will not have to buy any feed for them at all. We shall see!

Around the Garden

strawberries

Well I lost the first strawberries that tried to ripen in the greenhouse to rotting. They were touching the soil and were buried under the henbit and chickweed. So I cleaned up the bed and broke down and bought a bale of straw $11, ouch. But I mulched around the berry plants, the potatoes that I planted in Jan that are sprouting up and sprinkled a bit on one of the beds on the terraced garden.

Cantaloupe seedlings

The cantaloupe seedlings in the greenhouse are doing well. I'm going to have to thin them down to just one or two plants tho! Also sprouting up are some nasturtiums and there is a California poppy peeking in.

corn seedlings in soil blocks

I've started some Golden Bantam Improved corn in soil blocks. I usually don't start corn until May, but we are already having May type weather so decided to go ahead. I start them in soil blocks because of the birds, they are so terrible, pulling pea, bean and corn seeds out of the ground. This way they seedlings won't have root damage but will be big enough to hopefully escape the birds notice.

Eggplant seedlings

 I have 10 eggplant seedlings that I started indoors weeks ago. There is a hybrid eggplant that is a shocking pink called Neon. I grew it a few years ago and saved some seed. So these will be all different forms and colors. I'll pick my favs and save seed from them again, eventually developing my own. Of course I"m hoping for a shocking pink open pollinated eggplant....

volunteer pepper seedlings

 Remember the Yellow Marble tomato plant that lived all winter? Well apparently when I tried to get it to root on it's stem I broke the stem and it died before rooting. But it looks like there are some pepper plants of some sort volunteering from the compost I put in the planter.

Amish Paste tomato seedlings

I have about 25 canning tomato seedlings, about half Amish Paste and half Italian Heirloom. They will be going into the ground soon.

Little green plum

The plums are getting bigger, although we did lose some in a bad wind the other day, there are still a lot on the tree.

Dwarf Grey Sugar peas making seed

It is getting so warm that the Dwarf Grey Sugar peas are growing faster than I can keep them picked. They have also billowed out into the walk way at the bottom so bad that I can't really reach the tops without breaking the stems along the bottom. So the tops are loaded with pods going to seed. Which is ok, I needed to replenish the supply.

turnip seedlings

I have a small patch of turnips and thinned them out this evening. I tossed the greens in with some chard, lamb's quarters and spinach and cooked them up with bacon and onion for dinner.

one part of the front yard

Here is one part of the front yard, left, some Princepe Borghese tomatoes, some green onions and sweet alyssum. Buried in there are a few new strawberry plants. On the right behind the wire trellis are bunches of Italian Red Bottle onions, in front of it are more green onions and sweet alyssum. Oh yeah, one lone pea plant that the birds missed. The mass of green in the front is madder, a red dye plant.

Headboard trellis & Victorian cloche

Next to that bed is this one. I haven't planted the main part of it yet. On this end is an old head board I picked up off the side of the road. My cute little Victorian cloche is now protecting some watermelon seeds.

terraced garden

Over on the hillside terraced garden the first snapdragon is blooming. You can see I've added some straw to help keep the soil moister and to prevent erosion when it rains.  I've also added some more herbs to these beds, a citrus flavored thyme and two sages, a purple and a golden.

native penstamin

Around these terraced beds are clumps of native penstamin. They really attract bumblebees and hummingbirds.

Tall bearded iris

Here's a close up of my tall bearded iris.

sweetpeas

More sweetpeas began blooming this week. I can get high on these things, they smell soooo good! I planted all sorts of seed, some I collected from a garden fence I walk by sometimes, some from several old seed packets. I'm always attracted by labels that say "highly fragrant" and "old fashioned".  I just wish cameras could capture that fragrance to you could enjoy it too!

April in the Garden

First iris to bloom in the yard

I love this time of year, when some of my favorite flowers are blooming, iris, lilacs, roses, apple trees... It seems the garden is bursting at the seams these days!

I have so many old bearded iris in the yard, these plain white ones and some plain dark purples are the early bloomers; later there will be a tall yellow and a two toned purple and lavender.

lilacs in bloom

I love my lilac bush, it smells heavenly. The scent of iris and lilacs reminds me of when I was a kid and mom would put vases of them around the house.

apple blossoms

While that late snow browned the edges of some of the petals, the apple blossoms seem to be ok.

the terrace garden

On the hillside terrace garden the poppies, cilantro and wild flowers are getting a good start.

patio garden, west side of house

The patio still needs some cleaning up.

Princepe Borghese

But the Princepe Borhese tomatos are blooming.

Sweet Magnolia, a purple snow pea

Between the crazy weather and some rabbits, there are only a couple of Sweet Magnolia plants left, but they are making peas.

Sweet Magnolia pea blossom

And their flowers are pretty too!

Bleushokker pea blossom

There are only a couple of Bleushokker peas left too. They were in the coldest spot in the back garden and the Dec. snows did most of them in. They do have pretty flowers and they are the yummiest soup pea ever!

weedy spot in the back garden

I tried to get this silly picture to be vertical, but Blogger doesn't want to do it so it's sideways. This is a corner of the back garden, on the east end. This is a narrow trellis bed where I had planted Sugar Snap peas. there were only a couple of plants left in there and they were pretty sad looking with the crazy weather we've had this year, so I pulled them out along with all the weeds and fed them to the chickens.

Most of the weeds are gone.

Most of the weeds are gone now. I will probably plant either beans or cukes here, haven't made up my mind which one. On the right of this picture you can see the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas, which just started producing. More about those on Harvest Monday!

brassicas

This is one of the two brassica beds. on the right side is the purple sprouting broccoli, in the center are the Romanesco and on the left are either De Ciccio or Waltham, the tags got lost so I'm not sure which. I weeded out all the hen bit and discovered the bed was pretty dry; perhaps that's why they haven't done as well as they should have. Either that or I'll blame it on poor soil, late planting and crazy weather! Behind this bed is the one with the Mammoth Melting Sugar peas and behind that, the trellis bed that I weeded out.

Red Pontiac potaoes

The Red Pontiac potatoes that I planted in January are sprouting up and looking good. Some of them were just breaking ground when the snow came a couple of weeks ago; I just piled a little dirt over their tops and they didn't get frost bite.

Cecile Brunner Rose

The Cecile Brunner climbing rose that I planted a few years ago has grown quite large. I spotted the first blossom this after, after catching a whiff of it as I walked by. While the blossoms are very small, they are very fragrant. I hate that modern roses have so little scent and refuse to buy them. I want roses to smell, what use is pretty if there is no fragrance?

bolting celery

In the greenhouse the celery is bolting. The cilantro is already there. I let it bloom all over because it's small fine flowers are good for the beneficial insects.

Cilantro/coriander blooming

snapdragon

The snapdragons are blooming in their wall pots. The ones I planted around the yard are a bit behind since the air and soil outside are cooler.

tomato plants on the shelves, peas in the background

The greenhouse shelves are loaded with plants; more small fruited tomatoes, Snow White, Currant, Princepe Borghese.

baby tomato plants

The large fruited tomatoes were started later and so are smaller; Amish Paste, Italian Heirloom, Black from Tula.

basil seedlings

Lots of Classic Italian and Lime Basil seedlings.

green strawberry

There are some green strawberries in the greenhouse bed.

old seeds sprout!

The greatest thing though, is those Hale's Best Jumbo cantaloupe seeds that I saved in 2003 had almost 100% germination in the greenhouse under their cute little Victorian cloche!

Chickens!

And here are all the chickens, my four hens and my young Buff Orpington rooster, standing tall in the center. He isn't crowing yet but I have seen him getting after the hens, so I think I'll set aside some money next month for an incubator. I'd like to hatch small lots of chicks at a time for meat.


These chickens are not as tame as my previous ones. My other chickens I raised from chicks when my grand daughters were with me all the time and the girls were always petting and playing with them so they were very tame. These were in a large pen with about 50 others and while not exactly wild they don't come sit in your lap either! In fact they are just now getting the idea that when I come up to the fence and call them they should come because it means I have a treat, either scraps, weeds or worms.