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.

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.

OMG, I thinned the carrots!

And it's just as exciting and monumental as the title of this post indicates.  I've been terrible about thinning out my carrots in the past, but this year, I actually made it out into the garden and did what I believe is a very fine job getting them all straightened out.  The thinning was desperately needed, as I had monster clumps of carrots starting.  So I thinned the carrots (and to a lesser extent, the parsnips) to about 2 inches apart.  While I was on a roll, I also thinned my squash, beets and kale, and added a few more fennel seeds to try to fill in the empty spaces in that bed.  We are relatively on top of the weeds this year, and while my eggplants are still struggling against the predation of the flea beetles, the garden dust has helped and I think they may pull through.  We've also had a good amount of rain this week, and so I haven't had to water.  Mike has been regularly giving compost tea to the asparagus, tomatoes, eggplants, and to the trees, and that seems to make them noticeably perkier and greener.

On the pest front, I've made tin foil collars for my brussels sprouts, broccoli, asparagus, eggplants, and peppers, and that has helped tremendously with the cutworms.  I've also been using garden dust on the eggplants, broccoli and cauliflower.  The potato bugs are here, so I've been hand picking them and their eggs, and dreading the emergence of the larvae.  Today I noticed the first herd of cucumber beetles, who are going to town on my squash, so I'll have to do something there.

Speaking of trees, we have deer nibbling on the apple trees.  Apparently even though we added a third dog, they have done nothing to deter deer.  Weird, since they're all fantastic at barking at the wind....So Mike has purchased some deer repellent, and is hoping that it will work.

Fennel

Snap peas are coming!

Shell peas, spinach, snap peas, and pole beans

Edamame (front) and green beans

Tomatoes

Eggplants in their tin foil collars

Close-up of the sad, dusted eggplants in their collars

Walking onions

Shallots - apparently they really can't take a joke about being transplanted

Makeshift hotcap for a particularly delicate brussels sprout

Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts

Glorious potatoes

Parsnips and carrots, pre-thinning

Salads galore

No time this morning for pictures, but the garden is going like gangbusters.  We've been feasting on salads with our own arugula, mesclun mix, spinach, and radishes, and have been cooking with our own herbs, for a few weeks.  The harukei turnips are ready and have been amazingly tasty.  I've been roasting the turnips, and using the greens in egg scrambles and stir-fries.  Yum!  The shelling peas are setting flowers, potato plants are getting ready to flower, and everything for spring/summer is now planted and (mostly) germinating.

The bug issues have started (flea beetles and cutworms, I'm looking at you), and I had to replant my eggplant row because the flea beetles completely ravaged my first set.  Good thing I started such an excessive number of seedlings!  We've been spraying with neem oil to try to fend off the flea beetles until the plants get better established.  I've also had several plant losses to cutworms (two marigolds, an eggplant, two chinese broccoli plants), which just make me angry because those pests don't even eat the plants.  They seem to just be destructive because they can, and it's totally getting under my skin.  I've also seen a few potato bug eggs on my eggplants, but none so far on the potatoes.

Yesterday I tackled weeding the shallot bed, which I had covered with a row cover and then ignored for six weeks.  Apparently, that's really great for weed development, so that project took a while.  I also realized that I hadn't fully separated my shallot cloves, so I had to dig, separate, and re-plant them.  I went from having what I thought was 1/3 of a bed's worth of shallots to filling an entire bed, plus two other quarter beds.  At least we like shallots.

The brussels sprouts and cauliflower/broccoli seedlings that I started are still so sad, so I bought supplemental brussels sprouts at the farmer's market this week.  I'm still going to plant some of my own, but I think I'll need to cover them with milk cartons to give them a fighting chance, and still don't have high hopes.

The joys of parenthood - or, when picking potato bugs becomes your idea of a break

Firstly, Landon continues to prefer, vehemently, to sleep only in the wrap during the day, and snuggled up next to me at night.  While I enjoy his cuddles, this does make it quite hard to get anything done during the day, and is also getting quite hot.  So there you have it.  While I have managed to do some farming during my "baby breaks," I've had very little time left for blogging.  Right now, though, Mike is at work trying to get the little guy to sleep in his crib, and so I have both a bit of time, and a need to be distracted!

The garden looks fantastic, despite my neglect.  We've been enjoying our own lettuce, arugula, mixed greens, radishes, and herbs for a few weeks.  After our recent heat wave of last week, the arugula and greens bolted, but this timing was for the best, as the arugula was sharing space with tomatoes and eggplants who were looking for more room.  Tonight we had our first broccoli, which was delicious.  Tomorrow night's dinner with be broccoli quiche with our own broccoli and our own eggs, and I'm already looking forward to it.

Left side of the garden 7-1-2012

Right side of the garden 7-1-2012

First broccoli harvest!  7-1-2012

My perennial nemeses, the potato bugs and their disgusting larvae, are back.  This year I tried to be more diligent about finding and removing the eggs from the potato plants, and I do think that helped, although I have noticed the larvae over the past two days.  My potato plants are tremendously happy, which has made bug picking a bit more difficult as there are so many leaves to check.  I hope this means that we get a huge potato harvest, as the potato bug picking portion of the summer always leaves me needing a reminder of why it's still worth it to grow potatoes.

Potato plants 7-1-2012

We also have our first tomatoes!  I was surprised to see them this early - it feels earlier than last year, but I haven't had a chance to check my old posts to confirm this.  The snap pea plants are also flowering, and green beans and pole beans are growing well.  My uncle david's dakota dessert squash plants have already exceeded last year's growth, and I'm hopeful that this year I'll actually get to taste this squash.  My leeks/shallots/scallions seem to have flourished despite the weird worm that was eating them earlier in the season, and you can see that one of my holdover tomato plants is happily growing in the corner of that bed.  I've decided to leave my mystery tomato plants alone to see what they do.  I have no clue what variety they are, since they are holdovers from last year's grab bag of heirlooms.

First tomato!  7-1-2012

Uncle David's Dakota Dessert Squash 7-1-2012

Pole beans 7-1-2012

Snap pea flowers 7-1-2012

Beets.  Well, a couple, anyway.  7-1-2012

Bush green beans, lettuce and mixed greens 7-1-2012

Mystery tomato, scallions, leeks and shallots 7-1-2012

My lettuce transplant experiment was a total success!  The moved plants adjusted well to their new spots in the bed, and I'm quite proud of what I think was an innovative work around to thinning, which is a gardening concept that I have yet to embrace (honestly, out of laziness more than anything else).

Happy lettuce 7-1-2012

You may have noticed that the weed situation is looking fairly good - this is entirely thanks to our family friend Joe, who spent the better portion of his last visit to our house weeding the garden, and to whom I am eternally grateful.  Anne also weeded, and planted chard and green beans to fill in some holes in those beds, and she started the cauliflower seedlings indoors (they look very sad and leggy right now, though, so no pictures). 

Hilling, weeding, and the first potato bug sightings

We've had a ton of rain over the past week, which has been fantastic for my seedlings and even better for my weeds, so today when Landon was ready to be handed off to his dad, I headed out to the garden.  My first task was hilling the potatoes, which have gotten huge over the past week.  Mike picked up two yards of compost this morning to use for hilling (and for other things, as that is clearly an excessive amount of compost to hill two beds of potatoes), so I started by shoveling the compost out of the truck into the garden, then into the beds.  I'm going to be one sore mama tomorrow.  I surveyed the plants for potato bugs and eggs before I started, and found about 10 potato bugs, although I couldn't find any eggs.  I'd really like to catch the eggs so that I don't have to deal with the larvae, so I'm going to try to get out to keep checking over the next couple of weeks.

The seeds that I planted two weeks ago are all coming up nicely, and earlier this week I put in my second planting of bush green beans.  I'm planting three sets 10 days apart, in hopes that they'll be ready for harvest at a staggered interval this year. 

Pole beans 6-10

The beets continue to do nothing.  Strawberries are coming in, and I hope that this year we'll be able to snag a few before the birds eat them all!

 In the lettuce bed, I've tried to replant some of the lettuces, rather than thinning them, as my seeds came up in clumps (I'm sure this had nothing to do with how they were sown...).  Today they transplanted lettuces are looking a little limp, but I'm hoping this will work.

Lettuce 6-10

 The carrots and radishes look fantastic.  We harvested our first radish for salad on Saturday night, and it was delicious. 

Carrots and radishes 6-10

Chard 6-10

 I think cutworms got to one of my eggplant seedlings and one of my pepper seedlings, so we hit the farmer's market again to buy replacements.  The other seedlings in those beds are fine, so I hope these were isolated incidents.

Eggplant and tomatoes 6-10

 I have at least three tomato seedlings that have come up from last year's crop, including the one below (with one of last year's onions), one in the scallion/leek/shallot bed, and one nestled in with the cabbage.  I haven't pulled any of them yet, as I'm still admiring the fact that they took the initiative to grow.

Rogue tomato and onion from last year's garden 6-10

Snap peas

 Lily has spent the past week trying to eat the bulbs that my mother planted, so Mike installed a pretty fence around the perennial garden out front to keep the dogs out.  It looks lovely (he also mulched), but has been completely ineffective as far as the dogs go, and I've caught them both in there several times.  Apparently the new mulch is delicious (says Lily).  She can't understand why she's also banned from the vegetable garden...

Mostly planted

I had a fantastic Memorial Day weekend, with lots of farming and even a bit of sleep.  Mike and I hit the farmer's market on Saturday morning to pick up eggplant, pepper and herb seedlings, and then stopped by Skillins to get a few last herbs and tomato cages.  When we got home, Mike strapped Landon into the Ergo and they had major father son bonding time while I spent two wonderful hours in the garden, weeding and planting.  On Monday, we repeated this setup and I "finished" (are you ever really done?) weeding and planting the summer seeds of bush and pole beans, zucchini, cucumbers, winter squash, and basil.  Mike then managed to pull off the feat of watering the garden while wearing the baby, which was impressive but ultimately unnecessary given the huge amount of rain that we got yesterday.  Also on Monday, my mom planted day lilies, gladioli, and peonies in the flower bed around the well.  Lily has spent the past two days trying to dig up the bulbs and eat them.  She also helped herself to a generous serving of last Thanksgiving's fried turkey oil that was in the barn.  Anyone want a bearcub?

The tomatoes seem to have benefited from the actual hardening off that I did this year, and they look happy in their spots in the garden.  The carrots, radishes, snap peas, potatoes, and swiss chard are germinating very well.  My beets have barely come up at all.  I'm not sure if they are just being slow to germinate, if they were duds, or if something is eating the seedlings.  Also in the category of garden puzzles is the fact that some bug is snacking on my scallions/leeks/shallots.  I was under the impression, from all of my gardening books, that bugs left onion family plants alone.  Not in my garden.  These tiny black and white caterpillar/inchworms are munching the tops off of all of these plants.  Very odd, and I haven't found a solution yet since none of my go-to garden guides mention this type of pest.  So for now I'm just hoping they go away.  I'm sure that will work.

cabbage 5-30

chard 5-30

herbs 5-30

from front, eggplant, arugula, tomatoes 5-30

potatoes 5-30

radishes & carrots 5-30

beets (?) 5-30

We started spraying the arugula, mustard greens, and cabbage family crops with organic insecticidal soap as the flea beetles are just terrible this year, and they've officially killed one broccoli plant.  The soap has helped a bit, but we'll need to keep on top of it as it only works when it's wet.

Our peach trees both have a fungus, so I think we are once again going to spray and forgo the notion of organic trees this year.  I think if we don't, we may lose them.

In chicken news, the girls continue to look like a very ratty bunch due to all the pecking, but are laying very well and are enjoying the weeds that I bring to them from the garden.  One of the rhode island reds has become broody, and she spends her days and nights trying to hatch the fake lime in the corner of the coop.  She may not be intelligent, but she is very determined.  Expect baby limes any day....

Seedlings everywhere

This spring has been very kind to the garden.  The combination of plenty of rain with warm sunny days mixed in has been fantastic for my seedlings, and it looks like the garden is off to a promising start.  Carrots, radishes, chard, lettuce (including mixed greens, mustard greens, and arugula), beets, snap peas and scallions have all emerged and look happy.  We have flea beetles again this year doing a number on the arugula, mustard greens, radish and broccoli seedlings.  Maybe next year I'll get a chance to give them some protective covering.  We also harvested our first rhubarb crop last week from the two larger plants.

Lettuce portion of mesclun mix 5-20

Snap peas 5-20

I've been surprised to find that while having a baby has made me a slightly more responsible gardener, in that I now weed almost every day while Mike is holding Landon.  I certainly didn't weed this much last year, and I hope that I can keep it up, as the beds do look much better.  For mother's day, Mike bought me a tiny pop up tent with mesh sides for Landon to occupy while I farm.  Now I just need to get the baby to tolerate being out of my arms for more than 30 seconds, and we'll be in business!

On my morning tour of the garden this morning I noticed that the potato plants have just begun to emerge.  My goal for this year is to preempt a potato bug infestation by scraping the eggs off of the plants, so this week I'll need to start monitoring the plants.  I'd love it if I didn't have to spend so much time this summer "harvesting" potato bug larvae.

Potato plant 5-20-2012

Emerging potato plant 5-20-2012

The tomato seedlings are looking very happy in their new pots.  Since the weather has consistently been so nice, I think I'll start hardening them off next week, and then plant them outside.  I'm hoping to get to the farmer's market next Saturday to pick up eggplant and pepper seedlings, and then finish the first round of planting next weekend.

Tomato seedlings 5-20

Whenever you read about planting mint, you can't miss the dire warnings to be very cautious in your placement of the plant as mint is a vigorous spreader, and nearly impossible to get rid of.  Well, not in my garden.  Last year I carefully planted my chocolate mint and spearmint plants in their own pots within the herb bed, and made sure to keep the runners out of the larger bed.  I'm not sure what happened, but my spearmint never came back.  So I continue my streak of failures with "easy" plants and will be picking up a new spearmint plant at the market.

A sad tale of two mints 5-20-2012

The dogs have been a bit neglected since Landon's arrival, so to occupy themselves they've begun a serious excavation project in the front yard, to Mike's dismay.  At first it was a hole, now it's so large that I think it's safe to say we have the beginnings of a tunnel.  We're a bit concerned about the possibility of a cave-in, but at least it keeps them busy and away from the chickens...

Bullet going in

Bullet coming out

Finally, the junior farmer is two months old today!  He's just starting to smile and coo, although both are hard won and haven't been captured on camera yet.  He's a very easygoing baby most of the time (except for at 4AM.  He's lucky he's so cute).  At two months old, his favorite things are eating, looking out the window, looking at his parents, looking at the penguin on the bar of his bouncy seat, more eating, and being held.  We continue to adore him.