Gearing up for the big farming weekend

Memorial Day weekend is upon us!  This has traditionally been our big planting weekend to get everything out in the garden.  It's supposed to be a wet weekend, but I think we'll go ahead with most of the planting anyway.  I have the eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, flowers, and tomatoes and Chinese broccoli (these last two from my friends - it's so nice to have others to swap with!), all out in the cold frames.  They haven't really been hardening off much out there since it's been so wet and dreary and the frames have mostly stayed closed, but this still is more of a hardening off effort than I've made in either of the past two years.

The seeds that we directly sowed in the garden are doing really well, for the most part.  My strawberry spinach didn't germinate at all, which was disapointing but probably inevitable since the seed packet was quite clear that they needed to stay moist, and I neglected to water (and the skies neglected to rain - I'm willing to share the blame here).  But my arugula, beets, turnips, radishes, lettuce, regular spinach, peas (snap and shelling), shallots, garlic, scallions, and carrots and parsnips are all coming up.  The kale is a little iffy, I think I'll direct seed some more with the chard this weekend.

I'm hoping to hit up the farmer's market tomorrow to round out my seedlings, but if it's a total downpour, I may just go to Skillins on Sunday and hope that they have everything I need.  It was great to do a mini seedling swap with a few of my friends, and now I just need:

5-7 more tomato plants (mostly paste, with 1-2 more cherry/slicing if there are cool varieties available)
peppers (3 bell peppers, 3 jalapenos, 2 poblanos)
Herbs for the cold frame (rosemary, thyme, oregano, chives, parsley)
Herbs for the herb bed (parsley)

And now, pictures!

My lovely new coldframe!

Romanesco (back left), cauliflower, fennel and tomato seedlings in the coldframe 5/20/2013

Basil, nasturtium, and eggplant seedlings in the coldframe 5/20/2013

Seeds in the ground

We had an amazingly productive weekend, in large part due to a very helpful visit from my parents, and Mike's passion for all things tractor-related.  On Sunday, Mike put in the black and red raspberries, and my mom helped me weed the garden and plant our first set of cool weather crops.  Taperman assisted by entertaining Landon - a crucial job.

In the garden, we now have shelling peas, snap peas, spinach, radishes, arugula, chioggia and golden beets, harukei turnips, kale, shallots, and scallions all tucked into their beds.  This is by far the earliest I've managed to do any direct seeding, and I hope that means that I'll start getting some good harvests by early summer.

In total for the orchard, we planted 15 fruit trees, 9 hills of blackberries, and 20 red raspberry canes and three four-cane hills of black raspberries.  Next weekend I'll plant carrots, parsnips, and potatoes.

Hello garlic!

Prepping for red raspberries

Yes, Gramps - it's much better to see the chickens up close!

I'll take that, thank you very much

Farming buddies

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.

Despite the lack of blogging, we are farming

Having a newborn makes gardening rather tricky, but we have managed to get our cold weather plants in the ground over the past month, and have started our tomato seedlings as well.  We've figured out that Landon is quite happy to be worn in a wrap, so Mike has been doing the bulk of the actual farming work, while I wear Landon and supervise.  I hope that once I can wear him on my back, I'll be getting my hands dirty more often.  At any rate, a quick run-down of our progress so far this season:

Around April 15, we started the tomato seedlings inside.  We let them go in their starter cells for much longer than we did last year (due to nothing other than parenting induced exhaustion), and just transferred them into larger pots last night.  Right now we have 24 seedlings, and I plan to plant 12 of them in the actual garden, sending the extras off to Taperman and anyone else in need of tomatoes.

Tomato seedlings 4-18

Tomato seedlings 5-6

Tomato seedlings 5-13

The weekend of April 29, we did our first cold weather plantings, getting arugula, mesclun greens, sugarsnax carrots, beets and scallions in the ground.  I had wanted to get more done, but this was my first attempt at leaving the baby inside with his dad while I farmed, and I just couldn't stay outside for longer than an hour.

The next weekend we tag teamed the planting, and got the potatoes, chard, half of the cabbage, broccoli, radishes, carnival blend and koruda carrots all planted.  We've had a nice warm spring with lots of rain, which I'm hoping will be good for the garden.  So far, it's been excellent for the weeds, so we've had to spend about equal time weeding and planting each weekend.  The chickens have been the happy recipients of the weeds, which is the only upside to their presence.

This past weekend we took Landon on his first trip to the farmer's market to pick up leek, shallot, more cabbage, and brussels sprouts seedlings.  We ran into one of his baby buddies from our prenatal group, and even though he slept through the entire outing, I think he enjoyed it.  At least, we enjoyed it!  Mike broke out the rototiller and cultivator attachment for the weed whacker to create some additional space on the northern side of the garden for the brussels sprouts and for sunflowers, and he planted all of the seedlings.  Landon and I supervised (again, Landon slept).  Now we just have the warm weather crops left - eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, bush and pole beans, squash, and zucchini.  I think I'll plant them Memorial Day weekend, and we'll be hitting up the farmer's market one more time before then to get some more seedlings, since we'll need to buy eggplant and pepper seedlings.

Easter egg radishes 5-14

Rhubarb 5-14

Sugar snap pea seedlings 5-14

I'm planning on starting cauliflower seedlings inside once the tomatoes move into the garden, to be planted in July for a fall harvest.  We'll also plant a second row of sugar snap peas for a fall harvest (hopefully this will be different than last year, when I said that we'd plant a second row of peas, but never actually did). 

The fruit trees have been blooming for the last two weeks and are just beautiful.  Right now the apple and crab apple trees are in full bloom.  So lovely.

Finally, the chickens.  They aren't a pretty group.  We've tried giving them extra protein in the form of sunflower seeds, and extra mental stimulation in the form of large seed blocks, but they are still pecking each other to the point of baldness.  I think we only have one or two girls who remain unpecked, and we've given up on trying to protect them from each other.  They're laying very well, producing 12-15 eggs a day, but they certainly aren't much to look at right now. 

Structural Difficulties

This week we've finally gotten a decent amount of rain, which has been great for the plants growth-wise, but not so good for their ability to remain upright.  Earlier this week Mike had to do emergency tomato support maintenance, as the plants in the tomato/eggplant bed were leaning at 45 degree angles (over the eggplants).  He rigged some twine to help keep them from falling, but they still need a bit of help.  Part of the problem is that I was negligent in my sucker-pinching, so several of these plants have heavy branches that escaped the cages early on.  I think we'll have to set up stakes outside of the cages to keep them up.

Jungle of tomatoes 8-5-2011

When I went out to harvest veggies to bring to Anne and Eric, I discovered that the cucumbers are also experiencing structural difficulties.  The twine at the top of their trellis snapped, so the vines have collapsed.  I'm quite sad about this, as I've spent significant amounts of time training the cucumber plants to use the trellis.  I'll have to ask Mike to see what he can do to fix it this weekend while I'm visiting Anne and Eric.  I'm not sure if it's possible to repair, but finding the cucumbers without the trellis is nearly impossible, so I'm crossing my fingers that Mike can figure something out.

Collapsed cucumber trellis 8-5-2011

I warned Anne that she should not buy any produce this week, and I hope that she listened, because I'm heading down to Connecticut today with two bags of chard, a red cabbage, two green peppers, the (first!) purple pepper, carrots, beets, snap peas, and green beans.  Also, I'm bringing an ample amount of catnip for Tut and their new addition, Frodo. 

Anne's loot 8-5-2011

First purple pepper!

As I was washing the produce, and admiring how nice and straight the carrots are, I realized that the dogs were silent.  As any parent of children or young dogs knows, silence is often a warning that something very bad is going on.  Sure enough, when I went into the living room I found Bullet and Lily busily shredding, and eating, Anne's cabbage.

Red cabbage, post-Lily and Bullet

Because I love Anne, I gave the pre-chewed cabbage to the chickens (they appear to think it's a soccer ball), and went out and harvested a new one for her.  I guess counter surfing is something we're going to have to work on with Bullet....

Moving on, the flower bed is looking wonderful, finally.  The cosmos that I started from seed started to bloom today, and the zinnias look gorgeous.  I love having flowers mixed in with the vegetables, and will definitely be doing a similar layout again in next year's garden.  I'll probably mix the flowers into the vegetable beds rather than having a bed entirely devoted to flowers, though.

Zinnias and cosmos 8-5-2011

Yesterday I did my planting for the fall garden.  I planted the rest of the carrots, beets, and scallions.  I was thinking about doing a fall planting of snap peas, but need to put up a trellis first.  If we get to that in the next week (which I think may be unlikely given the tomato/cucumber situation), then I'll plant more snap peas, but otherwise I think I'll leave it alone.

I am a brave bug hunter. Kind of.

This week I've tried to make a concerted effort to spend more time in the garden performing bug maintenance, because the squash bug eggs have begun to hatch, and it isn't pretty.  Squash bug nymphs have little white bodies and black legs, and they gross me out (not as much as potato bug larvae, though).  Mamie and I first noticed them on Sunday when I asked her to help me scrape squash bug eggs off of the plant leaves, and we found these little guys in addition to eggs.  These little guys move fairly quickly, so I'm becoming much more motivated to eradicate all of the squash bug eggs to prevent more of the nymphs.  Those squash bugs are prolific reproducers, though, so it feels like a never ending battle.  The giant pumpkin plant has the most squash bugs/eggs/nymphs, while the actual squash field itself isn't so badly infested.  Part of my daily routine is now to scrap eggs and kill nymphs, in addition to patrolling for potato bugs.  Hopefully I'll be able to kill most of them before they grow into adult squash bugs, who, in addition to damaging squash plants, also look and smell and awful lot like stinkbugs.

In happier squash news, the spaghetti squash plant won the race in the squash field to be the first plant to produce flowers!  Below is a female flower on the spaghetti squash plant - female flowers have fruit at the base, while male flowers are only a flower on a stem.  If the female blossom is fertilized by a male blossom, then the fruit will grow into a mature squash.  If not, it will shrivel up and die.  In the squash kingdom, reproduction is not a game!


female spaghetti squash blossom 7-27-2011

 On the potato bug front, it looks like I am beginning to win my battle with the disgusting larvae.  I still find a few every day, but not so many as I was finding even a week ago.  Some of my potato plants still aren't looking so good, but I'm trying to remain optimistic after last week's sampling of new potatoes.

This week, I've noticed a beautiful sound when I'm being quiet in the garden - the soft hum of bees.  My flowers are covered in them, and in the mornings I can see the bees working hard to fertilize my squash plants (I know, I said I was going to help with that.  I haven't yet.  I'm trusting in the bees for now).  I've even seen a few honey bees, which makes me especially happy to see.  Hearing that gentle vibration from the flowers makes me happy that we've gone without pesticides in the garden, as I can see by the substantial bee presence that at least I have some good bugs in there.

Bee in marigold 7-27-2011

Bee in pattypan squash flower 7-27-2011

Also, isn't that marigold above just gorgeous?  It's one of the marigold plants that survived my shock therapy transplant technique.  I love the soft yellow white of the flowers, and the plants themselves are looking lush, green, and very happy.  I'm definitely growing more unique marigolds next year, and maybe I'll even be kinder to them when I set them out.

When Mike came home from work on Wednesday, I greeted him at the car with the terrible news that "we have a tomato situation."  While doing my daily bug inspection, I noticed with horror that most of the tomatoes in one of the beds had turned black at the bottoms.  I anxiously googled "tomatoes turning brown," and learned that these plants are experiencing blossom end rot.  Luckily, it's not terribly serious, and it's not an infectious condition.  Most likely, the temperature and water fluctuations were too much for these plants, and the calcium uptake to the fruits was interrupted, which causes them to rot from the bottom up.  It shouldn't affect new fruits that the plants produce, and it only happened in one bed, so the tomato situation isn't as bad as I first thought, although it is quite ugly on the affected fruits.  I've started picking the bad fruits and offered some to the chickens, but they weren't terribly interested, so I'll have to compost the rest.


Heirloom tomatoes with blossom end rot 7-27-2011

I think I mentioned before that the heat wave we had was not kind to my broccoli and cauliflower plants.  A few of the broccoli plants have some small shoots that are still nice and green, but the cauliflower is just a disaster.  I've been pulling the plants out and giving them to the girls, to make room in the beds for the next crops (I haven't figured out what those will be yet - this is a plan in stages).  The chickens are funny - they have a distinct preference for broccoli plants over cauliflower plants.  They'll eat both, but they will strip a broccoli plant of leaves and buds within five minutes, while they'll work over a cauliflower plant over the course of an afternoon.  The girls even prefer broccoli plants to lettuce.  Funny, funny chickens.

Chickens eating broccoli and cauliflower plants 7-27-2011

All week I've been watching the swallow eggplant, and yesterday the first fruit was ready for harvest!  The swallow eggplant is the plant that was under the heaviest attack by potato bugs a few weeks ago, and I feel gratified that it became the first plant to produce fruit, and that it is now potato bug free - it gives me hope that I'll be able to keep the potato plants going.  Swallow eggplants are an Asian hybrid, so they have a long, slender fruit that is not bitter - pretty much my ideal eggplant (I find that eggplant is often a vegetable that I like more in theory than on the plant).  I don't like the large eggplants that you usually find in the store, but love the more unique, smaller varieties.

Swallow eggplant 7-27-2011

In addition to the eggplant, I also grabbed a green pepper, carrots, green beans, snap peas, broccoli, scallions, chard, thai basil, and a baby pattypan squash for dinner.  I cooked up some udon noodles and sauteed all of the veggies, then once the veggies were cooked I made a quick spicy peanut sauce with coconut milk, crunchy peanut butter, chili garlic sauce, and soy sauce, and tossed everything together.  I don't have a picture of the final dish, because we were too hungry for photography by the time it was finished.  This is the dinner harvest, though.

Long carrot!  7-28-2011

Harvesting a pepper 7-27-2011

Dinner harvest 7-28-2011

We took the dogs to a local trail system that has river access in the evening, for a nice walk/jog.  The dogs had a fantastic time - Bullet absolutely loves the water and cannonballs into the river at every opportunity, while Lily prefers to gently dip her tushy in, and then wait to tackle Bullet on the shore.  Bullet and Lily had a great time running, swimming, and wrestling at the park, but it meant that by the time we got home, their dinner had been delayed by about an hour.  As I was cleaning veggies, I looked down the hall to find Lily in her best starving pathetic dog pose.  Note that she is using the counter to support herself, as she is so weak from hunger.  Completely understandable, since the only snacks she got on our walk/jog were ample amounts of cheese and chicken.  How does Mike not think this girl is a lab???


Starving Lily 7-28-2011