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!

More Goings on in the Garden

bolting lettuce and finished spinach

I think April might be the busiest month of the year for gardening. I know I have a lot of things going on at my place right now. In the back of this bed is lettuce I'm letting go to seed. This is the Italian Misticanza mix. I have another bed of this bolting also. Since I wanted more red lettuce I've pulled out most of the greens from this bed. You can also see a California poppy volunteer there. Down front is a patch of spinach. With the warmer days it's getting pretty tired so I picked all the good leaves.

Then I cleared the area of weeds and roots (the chickens loved them). And scattered a bit of horse manure over it. I'm thinking of doing this bed as a '3 sisters style', but instead of corn, beans and squash I"m thinking about using okra, black eye peas and maybe sweet potatoes.

new lettuce bed

Lettuce pickings are down again as another outdoor bed turns bitter and the tubs of Salad Bowl in the greenhouse join them. In the meantime this newer bed has produced a few leaves big enough to pick, along with some radishes. Along the front end with the radish are some cilantro. In the upper left are some turnips.

Pea plants in the greenhouse

We had quite a storm Friday night and Saturday with a lot of heavy wind. It shredded part of  the plastic on this end of the greenhouse (it was a bit old and starting to go already). It also blew the pea plants around quite a bit and now I must crawl over the rocks to get around them. I think I'm going to let them start drying off for the seed and so I can get them out of the way. Next year I'll try to remember to not let the plants from all the tubs grow together, so I can move them outdoors to a semi shaded spot come spring.

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!

Harvest Monday

home grown celery

Welcome to another Harvest Monday! Sponsored by Daphne's Dandelions this is a great blog hop to visit with gardeners from all around the world. (you don't have to be a blogger to go visiting, either).

With the lovely warm days and cool but not freezing nights the garden is really picking up, both out doors and in the greenhouse.

Besides my usual salad mix of lettuces, chickweed, lambs quarters, chard, spinach, sorrel, cilantro, I had a few mache plants this week too, just forgot to get a pic of them.

I cut one whole celery plant as a veggie for soup because it looked like it just might be trying to bolt. I haven't bothered with any blanching strategy on this celery, so I don't know if possible bolting or not blanching was responsible for the slightly bitter flavor or something else. But it wasn't bitter in the soup, so it's all good.

tiny broccoli head

The broccoli continues to put out side shoots but they also have just dime to quarter size heads on them. I've decided I don't really care, I just slice up the whole shoot, stem, leaf, itty bitty floret and all. Actually they say the leaves have more nutrition in them than the heads anyway.

snow peas

I've been picking a handful of snow peas every couple of days from the plants in the greenhouse.

greens!

I really love the Giant Red Mustard; a bit too spicy to eat raw in salad, it's wonderfully mild and sweet when steamed or braised. I've been picking mixed greens for cooking a couple of days a week. This photo show from left to right, Giant Red Mustard, a tend tip from wild Lamb's Quarters and some green chard called Perpetual Spinach. I usually chop them all together and braise in chicken stock, sometimes adding a handful or two of shredded cooked chicken meat at the last minute. Some times I also have kale in the mix.

Chicken and greens!

Yellow turnips, white & purple carrots, red & white radishes

There are still a few root crops in the garden, some Golden Globe turnips, some white carrots (maybe Belgian whites), some Purple Dragon carrots, radishes of several colors. The carrots were volunteers at the edge of a bed from plants grown last in 2009. I got busy and forgot about them....





And then I have literally hundreds of baby plants indoors under the lights, you can see some of them here in my post about soil blocks.