The garden has never looked so good in August

I had a no doubt pregnancy hormone driven garden panic a few weeks ago when it seemed like the weeds were completely taking over, and my very tiny efforts to control them weren't working.  Because seriously, staying on top of weeding while being increasingly pregnant and chasing a two year old is very challenging.  We decided to see if we could find anyone to hire for a few hours a week to help, and man was that a good idea.  The garden looks amazing now, I've had time to harvest and do a full round of succession planting for the fall, and now when I go outside I feel happy about the garden instead of stressed.  In fact, it looks EVEN BETTER than in these pictures because our lifesaving helpers has done even more work since I took these.

I am regretting that we didn't attempt tomatoes and zucchini, and feel like we have way too many cucumbers that I have no interest in eating or pickling, but again, pregnancy.  We've had great broccoli, chard, kale, peas, green beans, herbs, and are starting to get the first eggplants.  After the massive weeding effort we uncovered some surprisingly happy looking onions, and have done the full potato and garlic harvest.  Amazingly, we are in great farming shape.  We need to get on the Japanese Beetle situation as we're losing lots of raspberries, but it looks like that may be a task we save for next year.

We still have the accidental rooster, as so far Casper is the only interested party, and I feel like somehow letting him have the rooster might set us back on the whole concept of reinforcing to him that I don't want him to kill chickens.

"I can take care of the rooster, mom."

Pineapple tomatillos

Broccoli

Chard and Kale planted late last summer and still going strong

Cutting garden

Cutting garden

Lovely weed-free pole beans, root parsley, and melon vines that are refusing to flower or fruit in the background

Gorgeous!!!

Purple asparagus

Quick and dirty recap of the farming season so far

Oh goodness, blogging has taken a backseat this year!  But we have been busy, busy farmers.  We got very lucky in June and had a friend visit for a weekend to help us weed, which was just outstanding.  Unfortunately for us, those damn weeds grew back, but we've been making (minimal) attempts to keep up our weeding efforts.  The garden actually looks pretty good despite the re-encroaching weeds, and we've had great harvests so far:

Asparagus - so good!  Our first "real" year of harvesting asparagus, and we enjoyed every spear.  I'm very glad that we planted a second bed, and we're already looking forward to next year.

We're currently inundated with peas, and I have to say that I'm a little disapointed in the purple podded peas.  I had thought that they were snap peas, and planted a full bed's worth of them.  But after several tastings, I'm becoming convinced that they are actually soup peas, which I don't really have much of an interest in.  I'm wishing I had planted many more actual snap peas and shelling peas, because the ones that we do have are just amazing.  And since we're getting about 2 pounds of peas in total a day, it would be nice if I was a little more excited about the varieties I'd planted!  Oh well, I guess 2014 is the gardening season in which I finally learn that planting the purple variety of a vegetable doesn't always result in the best taste.

We did a good job of using our rhubarb this year, and I'm looking forward to booting it out of the garden next year to make more space for strawberries.  Toddlers are outstanding strawberry consumers, and so the vast majority of this year's berries never made it into the house.

We've been having great beets, carrots, chard, lettuce, and herbs, and I harvested a huge batch of garlic scapes which we've been able to (mostly) use.  I also made some outstanding garlic scape pickles, marking the official start to the 2014 canning season.

It's almost time to harvest potatoes, which we've been sneaking for the past few weeks and thoroughly enjoying.  Spraying the plants with bT once we first started to see emerging potato bug larvae has helped tremendously.

I had significant issues with cut worms, but only in my cold frames.  Those bugs are such jerks, and continued to take down my cauliflower and eggplants even up to last week - and those are not puny little seedlings any more!  So frustrating.

We're starting to get raspberries from last year's plants in good quantities.  We have lots of Japanese beetles, which are doing a number on the plants and even on the fruit, so we're researching the best ways to combat them.

I've been experimenting with letting our older flock of chickens free range on the days when the dogs go to daycare.  The chickens love it, and I think it's helping with bugs, but unfortunately one particularly hectic day we forgot to get the chickens back into their coop before letting the boy dogs out, and now we're down to 11 chickens.  Oops.  The new flock looks great, though.  We have an accidental rooster in there, so will be getting rid of him before the fall, because although it may seem like we don't have limits on animals, I draw the line at a rooster.

I love, love, love having flower gardens.  I feel like I'm still in the beginner stage in terms of learning about different plant varieties and what they like, but I do love seeing the blooms in front of the garden, and am getting at least a basic working knowledge of flower versus weed.

The 2014 farming season is off to a good start

Oh, the farming we did this weekend.  So much planting, and I think we ought to earn extra tough-farmer credit due to the fact that much of it was done in the cold rain, with the very hands-on "assistance" of a two year old and three dogs.  But I should back up, because we are such diligent farmers that this weekend wasn't even our first farming weekend.  Amazing.

As soon as the ground thawed, we went out to finish the remainder of the garden cleanup.  Even though we did better last fall at putting the garden to bed than ever before, we still had a lot of work to do.  Luckily, we had a task master to remind us that we needed to get started.

Guys, let's go!

So we headed out with the toddler and the dogs, and it was all hands on deck.  Please note that my dogs are disgusting, and you should never let them kiss you.  Ever.  Seriously.  Below, see exhibit 1.

Casper:  "Gonna just water this here overwintered kale plant a bit"

Literally seconds later.  Lily:  "Yum!"
Bullet:  "Hey that looks tasty, can I have some?"

 Deciding to view this in a positive light, we let the dogs continue to clean out the former kale bed, since apparently overwintered, rotten, very soggy kale plants (some of which have been freshly urinated upon) are a delicacy for bad dogs.  The toddler figured it was time to enlist the tractor, so he recruited his trusty sidekick "Otis."  Otis required quite the pep talk to get into the garden bed (there was much "come on Otis!  You can do it Otis!  How you doin', Otis?", but he made it).

 I was hard at work weeding the beds, but the toddler decided it was time to move on to inspecting the cold frames, so off we went.  The far left cold frame tipped quite a bit after the ground thawed, spilling a very exciting amount of dirt.  Landon was ON IT.  As to how they functioned over the winter, well, the parsnips did great.  The kale/chard/mache that I planted in the fall got stuck in seedling phase, but now they are growing so I guess I'm getting a head start on the spring crop?  I planted the beets and carrots too late and they all died.  And my herbs overwintered better in the completely unprotected herb bed in the garden than they did in the cold frames.  So, a mixed bag.  But the dirt spillage was awesome.

"I doin the dirt!"

 Outside of the garden, Mike started preparing for the epic berry expansion of 2014 by first marking out, and then digging, five very long rows of holes for blueberries, raspberries, and elderberries.  Landon assisted with much of the tractoring, and then got busy trying to fill in the holes again.

 Because the boys were already in tractor heaven, they took a quick detour to pull out some of the old trees and brush up against the house, which is the first part of our multi-year landscaping plan.  It was awesome.

"Daddy's helping me tractor!"

We've already had our first harvest of a handful of asparagus - delicious!

Gratuitous photo of the toddler summitting the rock pile

Mike hard at work planting raspberries

Sometimes, while planting, you need a hug.

Boys planting potatoes

Mike has also started three hives of bees, and I've got a bunch of seeds started in the mud room.  This year, Taperman is growing all of the squash and tomatoes in his garden, since we've had such terrible luck with blight and pests.  Taperman also has a new flock of chickens going, but doesn't remember how to blog, so I'll have to give him a tutorial so that we can get some reports on how they're doing!  I think we're done with frosts for the year, but it's still pretty chilly so I'm holding off on planting warm weather crops until around Memorial Day.  We've got potatoes, carrots, peas, lettuce, shallots, scallions, and beets in the ground - I planted all of them the last weekend in April.  The toddler has also been busy planting his toy cars in various beds, but so far, none have germinated.

Farming season begins

Winter has been desperately hanging on here this year, but finally, my beds are starting to poke out from the snow.  The cold frames are thawed (and no, my attempts to grow food in them through the winter were not successful at all - I think it may be more realistic to see them as season extenders rather than as a possibility for year-round fresh veggies).  It seems like we're going to have a cool spring, so I'm not in a huge rush to get the garden started.  We still have a good amount of cleanup to do, and I would so love it if this was the year I stayed somewhat on top of the weeds.

I have sorted out the seeds by planting date, and started the first batch of seedlings this past weekend (eggplant and brussels sprouts).  The brussels sprouts have sprouted, eggplants haven't.  I was planning on starting peppers last weekend but didn't get to it, so hopefully that will happen this weekend.  As I mentioned, not in a hurry this year!

Our big plans for this season revolve around planting more fruit trees and berries.  We're adding rows of raspberries, blueberries, and elderberries behind the vegetable garden, and need to replace a few of the apple trees that were terminally damaged by Mike's mortal enemy, the fearless deer.  I also found a variety of fig that's supposed to be able to withstand cold winters, and we'll be planting a couple of paw paw trees as well.  We may also put in a few ornamental trees to follow the landscape design that we had drawn up last summer - since we're going to pick up our tree order at the FedCo tree sale this year I have a strong hunch that there will be quite a few tree impulse buys.

Our landscape design includes some gorgeous ideas for perennial gardens, which we'll be holding off on for another year or so to focus on getting the trees and berries established.  We will, though, be ripping out the mess of existing plants that we have surrounding the house (tractor!), which I'm very excited about.  I'm also day-dreaming about putting in a perennial shade garden underneath some existing fir trees that we have in a corner of the yard.  We're lucky to have full sun in so many places, but I'm wanting to have some shade-loving favorites somewhere near the house.  And doesn't a sprawling shade garden tucked in a corner under fir trees sound a bit magical?  I've got to let this idea marinate a bit but I think I'd definitely like to include lily of the valley (I know it spreads, I don't really care.  We have a lot of space and it smells so lovely), bleeding hearts, and helleborus, and maybe this lovely silver lace black primrose (http://www.gurneys.com/product/silver_lace_black_primrose/shade-plants).

First frost last night

Light one, haven't surveyed the damage yet.

Notes for 2014

Haven't been blogging, but I have been farming (a little, at least).  Notes for myself for next year:

Need to figure out how to prevent/treat blight better.  So frustrating to lose yet another crop of tomatoes.

Start the eggplant seedlings earlier and transplant earlier.  This year's plants were so stunted that they've only just flowered.  Protect the seedlings from flea beetles.

Row covers/some kind of row cover type protection for cauliflower/brussels sprouts to protect from cabbage moths.  Also, apparently starting the seedlings when I did in 2013 gives you a fall crop.  Not bad.

Take a break from winter & summer squash.  Squash vine borers win this round.

More edamame, garlic, and onions!

Kale was awesome, next year do a mix and be sure to get some purple kale for color.

The perpetual spinach swiss chard is awesome.

Mexican sour gherkin cucumbers were tasty and lovely, but not productive.

Don't plant the poor peppers and eggplants in a bed where they'll be shaded and outcompeted.

Staggering green bean plantings does, in fact, make a big difference.

Red noodle poles beans are cool and worth growing again, Fortex is overrated.

Staggering carrot plantings is also a great idea.  Planting April & July worked well.

Stagger fennel, too.  A spring and a fall crop would be much better.  Direct seeding fennel is fine.

Direct seed the cauliflower/broccoli and eggplants in the coldframes in late spring.  Once it's warm enough to take off the covers, attach hooped row covers over the coldframes to protect from bugs (pvc pipe with fabric clothespinned to the pipe to stay attached).

Potato bugs

They're here, and the larvae have hatched.  No pictures, but trust me, they are as gross as ever.

Also, the cucumber beetles have stepped up their game.

Organic gardening is a real challenge for this farmer who hates bugs.

Next year, I think I'll do individual hot cap type protection for my most vulnerable plants (broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, eggplant, squash) rather than row covers.