A little Catch Up

Plum Purple Radish from Baker's Creek

I  see I haven't posted in months. No sense trying to catch up, will just go forward. Several beds of large radishes have come and gone. Very popular with many of my customers.

spinach

Spinach is always a big hit. Too bad I can't grow it in the summer time. Spinach is a very cool weather crop. Once we hit 80 degrees it just wants to make flowers and seed. Also the seed won't even sprout at that temperature, it's too hot.

new potatoes

This years potato crop was very poor. We had almot no rain and the ground is dry as dust.

Buff Orpington and Black Copper Marans chicks

I've hatched lots of chicks, some hatching today and one more hatch due July 3.

cactus flowered dahlia

To my surprise some of the dahlias I grew from seed last year survived the winter in the ground and in pots and are blooming now. I see buds on some others.

tomato almost ready

There have been a couple of ripe tomatoes, but not enough to take to market.

elephant garlic

The garlic harvet was also dissapointing. It is probably only half the weight it could have been. Again, lack of winter rain is to blame.

You can get almot daily updates on my Instagram page or Facebook page

Harvest Monday

Cherry tomato mix

Linking up with Harvest Monday, a great blog hop with gardeners around the world showing off their harvests. Lots of fun!

This week I finally had enough cherry tomatoes for both my Superior customers and our Globe-Miami Farmers Market.  I picked almost 10 pounds. I think next week will be even better. Next year I don't think I'm going to plant to tiny currant tomatoes. They just take way too long to pick. I am liking the Italian grape tomato call Pandorino. They are a nice size, good flavor and heavy producers, 8-10 fruit in a cluster. On the other hand I am not liking the Blue Cream from Baker's Creek. They are really splitting badly and don't want to come off the stem. I will not plant them next year. Besides I wasn't impressed with the flavor. I much prefer my old Snow White.

yellow scallop squash

This weeks squash harvest was only a little over 20 pounds.  I had a day when the plants wilted badly which reduced yields. But next week should be better as I've been trying to keep them more evenly watered. 

Black Tail Mountain Watermelons

Amazingly I have watermelons. So far nothing is bothering them so next summer I'm going to plant a lot more. I still have Hopi Yellow melons but they were planted later. They are new to me. I am thinking about covering my hoop houses in hardware cloth so I can plant cantaloupes in them next summer and actually get some!

Just hatched butterfly

Sunday morning I saw a just hatched butterfly.  I think it's a double swallowtail, our Arizona State butterfly

before

after

Also on Sunday I spent a little while cleaning a weedy corner.  There is still more to do but it was getting too hot. The little bit of green left on that bed is actually carrots.

dried basil

I also spent some time stripping leaves from dried herbs and putting them in bulk bags until I have time to put them in smaller ones and label them for sale. 

I picked some green and yellow snap beans but forgot to take a picture.  

Albino & Golden beets, small onions

I pulled some Albino and Golden beets. They grow a little slower than red ones so I try to plant them in their own beds. 

I also had a few very small onions. One of my lists said plant in January. I didn't think that was right but tried a few. Very tiny bulbs. So will stick with Sept/Oct plantings.

I picked flowers too, sunflower, yarrow, zinnia, marigold. I don't think I got a picture of them tho.

This weeks harvests:

6-28

Cherry tomatoes 1# 4oz

Beans.                  1# 14 oz

Scarlet Kale.         1# 0 oz

Squash.                 3# 8 oz

6-29

Scarlet kale.         1 # 4 oz

Lancinata kale      2# 7 oz

Belinda potatoes.  30 # 0 oz

6-30

Cherry tomatoes.   8 # 4 oz

Sage.                            2oz

Italian basil.                10 oz

Thai basil.                    10 oz

Flat parsley.                 10 oz 

Curly parsley.                8 oz

Lovage.                         4 oz

Squash.                   20# 8 oz 

Black Tail Mt. Watermelon 29# 0 oz

Carrots.                     1# 0 oz

Beets w/greens.        2# 0 oz

Small onions.            2# 0 oz

5 bunches flowers

Harvest Totals Week June 26-July 2
cherry tomatoes       9# 8 oz
beans                        1# 14 oz
Kale                          4# 7 oz
potatoes                   30# 0 oz
herbs                        2# 8 oz
watermelon             29# 0 oz
carrots                      1# 0 oz
beets                        2# 0 oz
onions                     2# 0 oz
TOTAL                82# 3 oz
Harvest totals do not include all the things I ate while I was working!

Farmer Friday; Potatoes, Pak Choi and More

New Potatoes; White Creamers & All Blue

More potatoes this week, mostly White Creamers and All Blue. The main planting is fairly protected, inside a weld wire fence which is inside an electric fence. But some were planted in the front yard where the old pallet fence was falling down. And of course the dang javalina found their way in.

javalina destroy part of the potatoes

pallet fence in the works

So working on replacing the fence became a priority; there is still more to do, but I closed up the main gap the javalina were coming through.

that *was* about 30 lettuces just 2 weeks from cutting

So then the next day I discovered a squirrel  had eaten the next lettuce patch. To the ground. Barely even a stump left. I was not happy to say the least. And I have been watching for it to come back.

squirrel eaten tomato

To add insult to injury it also took off with the biggest green tomatoes.

baby beets

beets & potatoes for dinner!

The beets are starting to come in and they are so sweet and delicious! Roasted with a little olive oil and seasoning they are as sweet as candy. And all the colors are so pretty together.

Baby Pak Choi

The baby Pak Choi was starting to bolt, so pulled it all, 3 pounds from a small patch and all spoken for as soon as I let the word out.

time for the peas to be gone

The peas have given less and less the past couple of weeks. We've had some cooler weather so they aren't too sad looking yet, but they aren't producing enough to be worth the water. So out they are coming, to be replaced by cucumbers.

Getting Ready; County Fair

Most of the collection of vegetables

Our county fair is this week and I'm scrambling to get my veggies ready to take to the fairgrounds, having to juggle some crazy work stuff along with that.

Besides some single veggie entries I'm also entering the vegetable collection. This first pic is most of them, the other one are things that would wilt quickly so they are waiting in a jar of water until I take off.

the rest of the veggie collection

There are 23 things in my veggie collection:

SPAGHETTI SQUASH

TROMBONCINO SQUASH

BUTTERCUP SQUASH

BABY BLUE HUBBARD SQUASH

YELLOW ZUCHINNI SQUASH

WHITE PATTY PAN SQUASH

YELLOW WAX BEANS

KENTUCKY WONDER BEANS

KING OF THE GARDEN LIMA BEANS

TRIONFO VIOLETTO BEANS

RED CURRANT TOMATO

SNOW WHITE TOMATO

PRINCEPE BORGHESE TOMATO

AMISH PASTE TOMATO

RAINBOW CHARD

RED BURGUNDY AMARANTH

ALL BLUE POTATO

GERMAN BUTTERBALL POTATO

YUKON GOLD POTATO

TOKYO LONG WHITE GREEN ONION

GREEN BELL PEPPER (UNKNOWN VARIETY)

GREEN CHILI, JOE E. PARKER

EASTER EGG RADISH

PURPLE DRAGON CARROT

STREAKED EGGPLANT

PURPLE EGGPLANT

I'm also entering some of the same veggies in their individual classes and have them sorted and labeled to make it easier when I get to the fair grounds.

winter squash

 

That Tromboncino weighs in at 12 pounds as near as I can figure (I had to use the bathroom scale!)

tomatoes, potatoes, chili, beans

Harvest Monday

Mountain Rose Potatoes

I dug the Mt. Rose potatoes up this week. The vines were getting really wilted in the heat. I can see where if we had had a bit cooler and damper weather I probably would have gotten quite a few more large potatoes. But I got about 15 pounds from about 25 -30 sq feet.

Mt. Rose inside

They have pale pink swirls inside.

Mt. Rose and yellow potatoes

I cooked some up with the yellow potatoes I harvested from the pots on the patio.

Sunflower

A couple of sunflower seedlings escaped the birds and are blooming.

Black from Tula

Another first this week was a Black from Tula tomato. This variety is from Russia and I got the seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange.

Black from Tula

The bottom side did have a couple of holes, I don't know what caused them they were dry inside so not fresh bird pecks. This tomato weighed in at about 6 ounces.

Tula sliced

Having never had this variety before I ended up eating the whole thing. It was not sharply acid like some tomatoes but not actually sweet either. Very nice and juicy.








You can check out my post from yesterday, to see my poultry, melons, squash and more. Linking up for Harvest Monday, a great blog hop sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions. Hop over and check out what gardeners around the world are harvesting.

Around the Garden

the back garden

The back garden is becoming quite a jungle. In the front is the Red Burgundy Amaranth, with chard and bolting lettuce. Behind that is the corn and bolting carrots along with random volunteer hollyhocks.

 On the other side of the corn patch is this hollyhock. For whatever reason my camera, which usually takes great pics, cannot seem to get the true color of this flower. I've adjusted it some here, but it is really more a purple color than this shows.

corn silks

This patch of corn is doing well as you can see above. The ears and silks are showing on some of the plants now, so fresh sweet corn is not too far away. This is Golden Bantam Improved, from the Seed Savers Exchange.

bush bean seedlings

The bush beans are sprouting right up in the heat. Here on the upper right you can see some parsnip flowers bending over to get in the pic and on the lower left the stems from a new planting of red amaranth with is in the corner of the bean bed.

squash plants on greenhouse

Here you can see the buttercup and tromboncinno squash plants running on the greenhouse frame.

squash plants from inside the greenhouse

Here are the plants from inside the greenhouse.

melon

Also growing in the greenhouse beds are some cantaloupe, and look at this beauty, can't wait for it to get ripe.

Eggplant #2

Out on the patio eggplant #2 is growing. This is a white one.

Baby Blue Hubbard

Here's that compost pile out front with the Baby Blue Hubbard squash. Three of the four plants are doing fine after I sprayed them with liquid iron a few weeks ago, but the fourth one is even more yellow now. It's way too hot to do any foiliar feeding now, so I poured the rest of the liquid iron from the sprayer directly around the plant. Since you spray a more dilute mixture than you pour on the soil I don't think this will burn it but it should help it out a little. If we get a couple of cloudy days where the temps are down a bit I could spray, but it's way to hot right now.

carrots and potatoes

This is a small bed where I've been pulling the rainbow carrots from. It's also a lesson in checking the records before planting. Apparently in Jan. I planted some sprouting russet potatoes in this bed and then a couple of months later I planted the carrots. Got a big surprise when the potatoes came up. But those potatoes are done and need dug, so I will not be able to wait for all of the carrots to size up; I need to get them out of the way so I can get the potatoes out of there.  (If I leave them too long they will resprout and the crop will be spoiled).

corn & more

In early May I planted this small bed of corn. At the same time I planted some lettuce seed all over and put on a thin row cover. The row cover as well as the partly shady location really helped keep the soil moist and I've been able to pick a good bit of lettuce from it. Later I also planted some squash plants down the middle. The squash are beginning to spread out and the lettuce is almost down. The yellow flowers are a wild sunflower that I think must have come in some wild flower mixture. The seeds are tiny and the little finches really like them, but they put off a lot of pollen and make me sneeze so they will be coming out.

corn, beans, lettuce

This bed has a bit of corn at one end, a teepee of Kentucky Wonder pole beans, a couple of Aunt Molly's ground cherries, some kabocha squash and under the window screen in the middle of the teepee is a little bit of lettuce.

The rabbit pen

Back in April I planted this bed inside my rabbit compound, with a little fig tree, comfrey and kobocha squash. A month ago the squash plants barely had a few leaves on them (seen here), now look at them!

The rabbit pen from the inside

Here's a shot from the other side of the fence. The lemon mint, also called bee balm is blooming. I don't know why they call it lemon mint; to me it smells more like oregano. The little fig tree is growing a few figs, but they aren't very big yet.

The patio

Along the patio the weed trees are making a comeback, so I''ve been trying to whack a few when I get the chance. The tomatoes are doing well and the tromboncinno squash are running and blooming.

Tromboncinno in the old washer liner

tromboncinno in a tub