Green all over

Despite the lack of rain that we've had lately, the farm is doing incredibly well.  In the past two weeks, we've begun to harvest baby carrots, lots of beets, broccoli, swiss chard, and have had the first hints of snap peas.  I've been out watering nealry every morning to try to prevent the garden from totally drying out, but it's been so hot and dry that the soil always feels bone dry in the evening.  The plants don't seem to be wilting, though, so I'm trying not to worry too much.

The bok choy ended up bolting, for real, very quickly, and I gave up on trying to eat it.  The chickens have been the very happy recipients of the bolted bok choy and mustard greens, both of which are foods that they go totally nuts for.  My dad's favorite chicken now dashes out to meet me when I come to the fence so that she can have first pick of the greens.  She gets so excited that she hops around on top of the veggies, then tears off as many leaves as she can carry and dashes away, all before the other girls have made their way over.

Last Thursday was Fern's birthday, and we made her a heavily garden-fueled dinner, with a salad that included our own lettuce, carrots, scallions, green pepper, and herbs.  We also roasted some of our baby beets in olive oil, and sauteed the greens with garlic.  A few weeks ago, beet greens were tasting almost beet-ey, but now they taste just like spinach.

Herb bed July 15 - that huge green mound at the front right is the catnip, which is staging a serious takover of its end of the bed



Onions and scallions July 15

Zucchini flowers July 15

Potato beds July 15

Close up of the sugar snap peas

Sugar snap peas latching on to their new chicken wire trellis July 15

Swiss chard July 15

Peach tomatoes July 15

Tomato beds July 15

Zucchini and green beans

I think that the squash plants may begin to flower soon, which means that this week I'm going to be doing some reading on squash fertilization.  Apparently, squash plants are quite promiscuous and will cross-pollinate with any other squash family crop, so the conscientious farmer will hand fertilize her plants to prevent cross-pollination.  It seems like the process is fairly straightforward, and I'll report back later on how it goes.