Farmer Friday & #eatwhatyougrow

cleaning up a bed in the back garden

I cleaned up a bed in the back garden this week where a few puny beets were left. I cleared off the weeds, loosened the soil with my digging fork and added about 3 inches of fresh compost.

collards

I planted out some Georgia Collards. Some were totally decimated by slugs and cabbage worms but I planted the little green sticks anyway. I know that now they are in good soil they will grow quickly.

a couple of pounds of green beans

There were some green beans but not as many as there have been.

some squash, cucumbers

There have been some squash and cucumbers. And even a cantaloupe. 

The young ducks are beginning to lay

The Ducks that hatched this spring have begun to lay this week. 

Capt. Hook's little brother; almost twins

Captain Hook

roasted beets and potatoes with fresh herbs

#eatwhatyougrow I discovered a couple of volunteer potatoes in the bed and roasted them with the beets and fresh chopped herbs for dinner one night.

Honeyboat Delicata

The Delicata squash in the front yard wilted badly and just went crispy so I picked all the squash and brought them in. I picked out the ripest looking one and cooked it in the microwave since I was in a hurry that day. It wasn't that sweet so I am thinking they need to sit and ripen up some more. I'll leave them for awhile and try again.

Black Locust seedling?

I discovered a volunteer along the path to the chicken house. I'm pretty sure it's a Black Locust seedling. I'd rather not have a thorny plant that close to the pathway but it's doing so well I really don't want to bother it. In this picture it's about 3 feet tall but it's taller now. At least it's thorns are smaller than the giant Honey Locust in my front yard, that tree has wicked thorns 3-4 inches long and sharp as needles. Locust trees are pioneer species and can host nitrogen fixing bacteria on their roots.

Farmer Friday

cleaning up

I cleaned up this bed in the creek side garden this week. I've been holding off planting a lot of stuff, waiting for rain. We got a good rain Monday night so time to get in gear. 

red wigglers

I was really happy to see s lot of earthworms in there. Worms are one of the biggest fertility boosters you have. 

planting seeds

 Later I planted a row of rainbow carrots, a row of turnips and half a row of red and green Mizuna mustard. I couldn't find the rest of my mustard seed so I planted the other half of the row to dill.  I sprinkled some radish seed in with the carrots. 

Scarlet kale

I planted out some Scarlet kale seedlings

Collards

And a few more collards. The ones that I planted before that got a little crispy are looking better. 

driveway bed with lime basil

The lime basil by the driveway has really taken off. I cut them all down to dry. 

bush beans under bird net

The green and yellow beans are doing well.  There weren't even a handful of pods to pick today but they are loaded with flowers and tiny beans. 

Scarlet kale

I picked lots of kale. Cherry tomatoes are way down this week. The plants are loaded with green fruit but there were a lot of splits in the ripe ones. 

erosion control

The storm Monday did some damage to the swale above the new garden so I worked in that a little bit. 

assorted summer squashes

The squash harvest was also down this week. But they are putting out new growth and I see a lot of tiny fruits coming on for next week. 

Market More cucumber

FINALLY!!! A little cucumber!

a bowl of herbs

Lots of herb orders this week. Thai and Italian basil, curly parsley, oregano and sage. 

new potatoes with herbs for roasting

I had some new potatoes set aside for us (sold all the rest already) and roasted them with fresh chopped parsley, sage, basil and oregano. So yummy!

Farmer Friday

It took me almost 3 hours to pick 8 pounds of cherry tomatoes. Good thing I had that many to pick. I delivered more than half to my customers in Superior. The rest will go to the Globe-Miami Farmers Market tomorrow. 

This weeks squash harvest was a measly 20 pounds. I over estimated how many days they could go between watering were getting and some of the plants were getting crispy when I got to them. 

I did pick lots of kale, both Scarlet and lancinata. 

I discovered 6 Black Tail Mountain watermelons had a dried up tendril and a yellow spot on the bottom.  I am amazed that the rodents have not bothered the watermelons.  That's almost 30 pounds of melon!

I only have a few rainbow carrots right now so I pull them on request. That yellow one is looking really nice. That tells me the soil is getting better. 

I pulled a couple of bunches of Albino and Golden beets. I experimented with planting onion seeds in Jan. they made very small bulbs but they are a great size for grilling. 

I picked a lot of herbs, flat and curly parsley, sage, Thai and Italian basil. The flowers this week are marigolds, zinnias, yarrow, a couple of sunflowers and some dahlias. 

I planted these collards plants and watered them the other day. Apparently not nearly enough water. I really poured it on and in a couple of hours it looked like most were reviving. This time of year is really hard. I will be working to automat and streamline a lot of my systems this year, especially water!

Things are Changing Fast

Last of the spinach

Cucumbers

We are having unusually warm weather here. Many years we have a snow storm roll through at Easter. Well this year we are having 80-85 degree days and 45-50 degree nights. So we are a solid month ahead of schedule. The last patch of spinach was getting aphids from the warm weather so out it came, to be replaced by cucumbers.

pulling out the bolting collards

planting Pak Choy

The collards were bolting and nothing I did would stop them from trying to flower and go back to making leaves. So out they came, to be replaced by some Pak Choy seedlings on one end of the bed and bush beans on the other end.

potato blossoms

The potato plants are growing well and some are blooming. The flowers are pretty and are slightly different colors on each variety.

Summer Bibb lettuce

The Summer Bibb lettuce is really pretty and ready to cut.

blossom on Sweet Magnolia, a purple snap pea

I didn't get the Sweet Magnolia's planted until it was pretty late, but they are finally blooming so there will be purple pods mixed in with the green ones this week or next.

lettuce seedlings tucked under tomato plants

I try to make use of every inch of space so after planting out the tomatoes, I planted lettuce seedlings between  them. The lettuce will be gone long before the tomatoes are too big.

tomatoes on strings

This year I am experimenting with growing tomatoes very intensively. They are planted close together and will be trained up strings and pruned hard. This is supposed to give you more perfect fruits. We shall see.

Farmer Friday; I HAS PEAS!

The peas are in!

I LOVE peas! Any kind, any way (except canned; canned peas are just nasty). Snap peas, snow peas, shelling peas, soup peas. Raw, steamed, stir fried. Yummy! This year I only had room for some rows of green and purple snap peas. Hopefully next year I'll be able to plant some of the other kinds too. But the peas are in and the vines are loaded. Peas season isn't very long here because they don't like the heat so I just gorge on them while I can.

Buttercrunch lettuce

The Buttercrunch lettuce is ready and the heads look really nice. Buttercrunch is sort of a cross between butterhead and crisp head lettuce. Lettuce season is also short here. As soon as it stays about 80-85 degrees or warmer every day the seeds won't sprout and the plants will be bolting (going to seed) which makes them bitter.

Collard greens

Getting ready for the Superior Farmer's Market tomorrow (Superior, Arizona). Besides peas and lettuce, there will be the usual kale, collards, rainbow chard, spinach, fresh eggs and cilantro. See you there!

Farmer Friday

carrots and radishes

Today was getting ready for market day. Pulled some rainbow carrots, although most of the ones that were ready were white, there were a few orange, red and purple ones, along with a few radishes.

Red Russian Kale

Got the first picking of kale from the hoop house. This is Red Russian, also known as Siberian and Ragged Jack.

Red Mizuna Mustard

Picked a couple bunches of Red Mizuna Mustard. There is some left, but it's going pretty quick.

Cilantro

Picked some lovely cilantro. I love this stuff. I even munch on it as I work in the garden. It's like addicting.

DiCiccio Broccoli

I picked a couple last bunches of broccoli. The side shoots are getting really tiny. If I was just picking to eat myself I would leave the plants a little longer. But most people was something bigger than your thumb nail. So next week out it will come and something new will be planted. Lettuce mix, perhaps.

Rainbow Chard

The Rainbow chard is still doing well. Some of these plants were planted a year ago and still going strong.

Planting in the New Garden

adding purlins to the low tunnel hoops

Well my supplier didn't get my EMT conduit in yet but I remember seeing some laying around somewhere.... So a check of the junk piles yielded just enough to finish the first bed in the new garden. Mmmmmm looks like a couple of issues. Partly these aren't connecting because the ground slopes a lot from one end to the other and partly because under the compost the ground is as hard as concrete.

my trusty 8' iron bar

So off to find my trusty iron bar. The pointed end is just right to make the holes deeper for a couple of the hoops so they go into the ground a  little further.

purlin on, ends taped to protect cover from rubbing

You can buy special connectors to attach the purlins to the hoops and I probably will get some; they will help make the framework more rigid. In the meantime some baling wire (aka tie wire) did fine. Along with some Gorilla tape on the ends to prevent abrasion of the row cover on the end of the purlin.

wind.... grrr

It was a beautiful sunny morning, so calm and so still..... UNTIL I rolled out the row cover! Of course the wind started up the instant I went to put the cover on the hoops.

with 2 pieces of row cover

So I found some clamps and got it fastened down. Only to discover that either I should have pushed the hoops farther into the ground or I should have ordered wider row cover. What I have is not wide enough to cover the hoops with enough slack on the ground to weight it down. So for now there are 2 pieces of cover on these hoops.

planted!

Once all of that was settled, I got busy planting. Some baby pak choi, collard greens and broccoli. I'm thinking the pak choi and collards will be ready to pick in about a month. The broccoli will probably be about 8-12 weeks.