Farmer Friday 11/8/19

Rearranging and adding to the soaker hose. Peas and arugula will go down the center. 

And turning compost. 

Picking flowers, herbs , kale, mustard and arugula. 

Giant red mustard and arugula 

All set up at market. Was a nice evening. But I am wore out. Good night. 

Farmer Friday

cabbage and mustard seedlings in a low tunnel

The weather has been really crazy this year. While I don't think our hottest summer day beat the 115 degrees we had in June last year I think we have had a lot more days that were 95+ this year. 20 years ago we would have had a killing frost by Halloween and possibly seen some snow by Thanksgiving. Here it is November 30 and it hasn't even frosted. At all. Nada. Not even close. I still have somewhat productive zucchini and a few straggling cherry tomatoes. Hard to keep to my planting schedule when plants aren't coming out on time. I do have 2 low tunnels covered with frost cloth. In one are red and green cabbages, red mustard and I just took out the little patch of baby pak choi. I replaced it with rainbow beets.

Fava beans and red mustard

The other low tunnel is mostly fava beans and more mustard. I don't sell a lot of mustard greens but the chickens, especially the young ones love their greens. Mustard is hardy, grows year round and is easy to grow. tucked in between other things in both tunnels is cilantro. both of these pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, so the plants are a lot bigger now.

funny looking pumpkins

I haven't been selling many of my funny looking pumpkins so I started feeding them to the chickens, who enjoy them tremendously. First they fight over the seeds and then they eat the meat, leaving a paper thin bit of rind.

baby turnips and greens

The turnips are growing well. But they are not the best sellers so I will not plant so many of them next time. But the chickens do like them, roots, greens and all.

spinach seedlings

It has finally cooled off enough that the spinach is finally sprouting. But it's still been too hot for the lettuce.

I pulled the rest of the turnips this morning. Some had gotten quite large. 

It's hard to believe there are still cherry tomatoes. These were late volunteers so maybe next year I'll plant some late on purpose. 

There are still a few Red Kuri squash to pick. These have been very popular with my customers. 

This is an avocado seedling. It is over a year old and has lived through one winter already. If it makes it through this winter I will put it in its own pot. There are two more in there but they aren't very big yet. 

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

Red Mizuna Mustard

Getting ready for the Superior Farmer's Market tomorrow. I pulled all the red Mizuna Mustard greens, cleaned up the bed and planted cilantro in it's place. In a couple of weeks the Giant Red Mustard will be ready to start pulling.

Ants warming up in the sunshine

It is still about freezing at night, then warm and sunny during the day. I noticed the ants sitting on a rock by their nest enjoying the sunshine.

Rainbow carrots & Radishes

I pulled some Rainbow carrots and a few radishes. There are not a lot of carrots left, but it's almost time to plant more.

Marans egg is #6 on the shade card

The days are a bit longer now and some of the hens are picking up their egg laying! I love the extra dark Marans eggs. This one was a #6 on the shade card (which happens to be upside down in the pic) I'll start collecting eggs to hatch starting this Sunday.

The back garden 2-3-2017

Today was a really pretty sunny day and I enjoyed my time in the garden. Took off row covers and discovered some beds needed a drink of water and most had a few weeds. So I enjoyed the sunshine while I watered, weeded and harvested. The chickens all enjoyed the weeds and bugs I tossed to them.

Farmer Friday

left 4 eggs from the bantams and a olive egg from a compost chicken

After taking a couple weeks off for the holidays tomorrow we'll be back at the little market in Superior, Arizona. So today was mostly about getting things picked, washed and packed for that. The little bantam hens I was given have been laying about 4-5 eggs a day. They are small eggs and go in my 18 count cartons. Most of the compost chickens, being older hens have taken the winter off so I was surprised to find this pretty olive egg in their nest box this morning.

Rainbow carrots

I finished cleaning out a bed of rainbow carrots. I'll probably plant lettuce there as soon as it's ready to replant. Only one more bed of carrots are left.

Baby Mizuna Mustard

I picked a couple bunches of baby Mizuna Mustard. Its frilly cut leaves are really pretty with the red and green color.

cilantro

Cilantro, also known as Chinese parsley, is a multi-purpose plant. While the flavor is not to everyone's taste, once you get used to it, it's addictive. It's chock full of vitamins and minerals so it's good for you too. It grows very well in cool weather, but won't even sprout once the heat sets in. I like to grow patches of it all over the yard and let them bloom. In the spring they feed the ladybugs and butterflies. Then they make tons of seed. That seed is another herb known as coriander! I love to add a few to my pepper grinder for a different taste. The entire plant is edible, roots, leaves, stems, flowers and seeds.

Lancinato Kale

Lancinato Kale is also called Dinosaur Kale or Palm Tree Kale. It grows up a fat stem and since you pick the leaves starting from the bottom, you end up with something that does resemble a palm tree. 

DiCicco broccoli shoots

The DiCicco broccoli is still putting out little side shoots. These are so tender and yummy even raw. You have to be careful not to overcook them and make them mushy. As soon as they turn bright green they are done!

I also picked some Giant Red Mustard and some Georgia Collard greens, just forgot to take a picture! Besides the veggies I'll have some eggs and my daughter and grand daughter will bring their Peace &  Harmony brand all natural face scrubs and chap sticks.

HARVEST MONDAY

lettuce, chard, sorrel, spinach, radish, chives, violas

Another Harvest Monday rolls around! I love visiting Daphne's Dandelions and hooking up with gardeners around the world!

 Well the lettuce harvest is lightening up again as some patches are turning bitter and preparing to bolt, while the newer patches are not quite up to speed yet. I need to figure out how to get a steadier supply going and not wait so long between plantings, especially now that the weather is warming up I don't expect a planting will give me as many cuts as when it was cooler. And soon it will be too hot and the seeds won't even sprout.

Mammoth Melting  on the left, Dwarf Grey Sugar, right

The peas in the greenhouse are falling all over the place and loaded with seed. I'm going to start drying them off. The Mammoth Melting Sugar peas planted out in the garden are starting to come on now. You can see how much bigger their pods are compared to the Dwarf Grey. I will probably keep growing the Dwarf Grey though, just because they are really pretty.

Of course I got eggs this week, all the girls are laying so I get 2-4 eggs a day.

Greens

I'm eating two or more dinners of greens a week now too. Red Mustard, chard, spinach and lambs quarters, usually mixed together and cooked up with bacon and onions. I have ripped out the last of the spinach and the lambs quarters in much of the yard are beginning to get tough and stringy, but so far the mustard and chard are holding out.

I finally found my calculator and tallied up March's harvests; 25.56 pounds of produce worth over $60. I don't have an exact $ amount yet as there are a couple of prices I need to check on first. I finally got my taxes finished so now I can maybe finish cleaning off my desk and finding my garden receipts so I can catch up my expense page.