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.

Hot! But at least the veggies are happy.

Both dogs are stretched out, unconscious on the floor right now, because it is SO HOT!  90 degree weather in Maine is quite the shock to the system, and it looks like only the garden is handling it at all well.  The dogs and I are suffering, and Itch (the cat) is dramatically lying prostrate on the floor of the hottest room in the house, as she seems to have forgotten that the air conditioner is in the next room over.

I've been watering the farm more regularly, because we've had such a long streak of hot weather with no rain.  I'm at the point of actually hoping for a thunderstorm, because then at least we'd get a little moisture.  I visited the squash field this morning, and I'm sad to report that the nutty delica plant is no more.  I guess it couldn't withstand the constant assaults by cucumber beetles, in combination with my unfortunate habit of dragging the hose over it every time I watered.  Let this be a lesson - apologizing for crushing a plant repeatedly is not enough to ensure its survival.  The Uncle David's Dakota Dessert squash plant also doesn't look good.  This morning it was covered with cucumber beetles and the leaves were full of holes.  I tried to pick off as many of the bugs as I could, but I don't think it's going to end well.  The rest of the remaining crop all look very good, though, and I'm hoping that they've now reached a large enough size where they'll be less susceptible to bugs, bad weather, dog roughhousing, and my inexpert hose usage.

We had a fantastic farm centered dinner last night, in which we had our own pattypan squash, zucchini, and green beans for the first time!  Mike was in charge of picking the green beans, and I'm pretty sure he ate more than ended up in the bowl.  Fern, I had to include a picture here so that you know I'm not lying...

We also have our first eggplants beginning to grow.  It looks like my daily potato bug harvesting has eliminated them from the eggplant plants as well (although they continue to show up on the potato plants.  And they're still really gross).



Eggplant 7-20-2011

 The pattypan squash and zucchini plants have all begun to set fruit, and so I'm trying to come up with as many ways to use them as possible.  Tonight I'm planning on stuffing some with a lentil, swiss chard, and soy sausage mixture, but the heat is seriously testing my resolve to use the oven.



Pattypan squash 7-20-2011

 The cucumber plants have also begun to flower, so we should see our first cucumbers soon.  I planted lemon cucumbers, which I've never actually eaten (or seen) before, so I have my fingers crossed that we'll like them.

Cucumber flower 7-20-2011

The asparagus/lima bean bed is looking quite lively now.  I need to research my lima beans to see if they need a trellis.  I thought that they were a bush bean, but the stalks are looking awfully bendy and in need of support.

Lima bean/asparagus bed 7-20-2011



Swiss chard 7-20-2011

 Also, I want to be sure everyone knows the swiss chard situation that we're facing.  It's just like the lettuce, except that it's more versatile (there are only so many times I can serve salad).  Despite the fact that we're eating it with almost every meal, and I've sent every visitor we've had home with a bag, it's still taking up almost a full bed.  The side of the bed that is facing you in this picture is the side that didn't fully germinate.  I'm not really complaining, as I love swiss chard and I've managed to be able to work it into most of our dinners, but I am impressed by the crop.  The picture here doesn't quite do the range of colors of the stems full justice.  Some are red and white striped, and others are an almost neon orange/pink combination, in addition to stems that are monochromatic white, yellow, red, and orange.  The chickens also absolutely love greens, so if the chard becomes too much, or if it bolts, I know they'll be ready and willing to assist.  I think they ended up eating about 90% of the bok choy, which bolted quickly and isn't something that I plan on planting again.

The barn cats have now had the run of the barn and land for four days, and we still seem to have all three of them.  Mike and I have both seen glimpses of Oreo and Persephone, and Mike allegedly saw Pam last night.  Bullet and Lily also saw Oreo and barked at him, so to add extra insurance that the barn cats don't take off I've begun to leave them massive offerings of catnip in addition to cat food and water.  This is also my attempt to try to halt the catnip takover of the herb bed, since the catnip is overshadowing the regular and garlic chives, and Itch seems to have no interest in consuming it.  As you can see below, Lily was convinced the catnip was actually for her.



Catnip 7-20-2011

 Back to last night's dinner - I made a double broccoli pesto with pasta (based on http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/double-broccoli-quinoa-recipe.html, although I had to substitute like crazy since I didn't have a lemon, soy parmesan cheese, and used tofu cream cheese instead of creme fraiche).  I sauteed our pattypan squash, zucchini, green beans, and swiss chard to toss with the pesto and pasta, and made the pesto with our own basil and parsley.  The end result was delicious, and if Mike is getting tired of me endlessly repeating how amazed I am that WE GREW THESE VEGETABLES, he hasn't let on.


Dinner harvest 7-20-2011

Finally, this morning I saw that our giant pumpkin plant has started to flower!  It was just one flower (a male), so I couldn't put my newly researched squash assisted reproduction skills to use.  The flower was also just filled with cucumber beetles (they are attracted to yellow/orange).  I tried to scrape most of them out without disturbing the bees that were circling the flower.  I didn't get stung, and I got at least 10 of the beetles, so I'm counting the experience as a win.

My fashionably late asparagus

The asparagus is finally up! It feels like it took an abnormally long time for this to happen, but as I was mentally drafting this post I realized that 1) I don't exactly remember when I planted the asparagus, although I feel like it was late May, and 2) I haven't come across anything yet in my reading that says how long it takes asparagus plants to come up. None of my books mentioned anything about a month+ long wait, though, so I'm sticking with my gut feeling that these are late blooming asparagus plants. But it doesn't matter, because they're actually here! I was weeding the other beds in the garden on Sunday, and noticed some funny looking plants in the asparagus bed. In my many weeks of farming, I've developed a handy two-pronged test for identifying weeds. First, if bugs are eating it, there's a chance it's something I planted. Bugs much prefer my veggies to weeds. Second, if it shows up in more than one bed, and it's not something I planted in more than one bed, it's a weed. The funny new plants in the asparagus bed failed question one, as they were untouched by bugs, but they certainly didn't look like anything else in my other beds. When I looked at them more closely, I noticed that the very slender stalks resemble asparagus quite a bit. I consulted my gardening bible, and it had a picture of a well-developed asparagus bed, with lots of frondy plants waving in the breeze. I don't have that, but my little guys are at least trying. As a congratulations for surviving present to them, I finally weeded their bed. I'd been hestitant to weed it before, partially because I didn't want to inadvertantly pull up any asparagus plants, and partially because I was pretty irritated that I couldn't see any asparagus. Now, though, they have a mostly weeded bed, and I told them several times how proud I am that they've joined the garden, just in case they're like my dogs and enjoy verbal praise.