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

Beginning the fall cleanup

Since it was so gorgeous out last weekend, Mike was inspired to begin the fall garden cleanup, and I was inspired to pick lima beans.  While Mike pulled out the cucumber, green bean, zucchini, summer squash, snap pea, and cabbage plants, I harvested the lima beans.  One of us is clearly a more industrious farmer than the other - I'm lucky I have a productive teammate.

Below is the lima bean/asparagus bed pre-harvest.  As I started picking lima beans, I realized that the majority of the pods were at the base of the plants, and that the lima beans were really crowding the poor asparagus.  I also realized that the odds that I was going to go back for a second lima bean harvest this late in the season were not good, so I decided to pull out the lima bean plants and harvest the pods that way.  It was much easier to harvest the lima beans, and I think it made the asparagus happy.  As I was yanking, I promised the asparagus that I wouldn't plant anything else in their bed next year, and I apologized for doubting their growth potential.  We got a pretty good yield of lima beans, and I think the asparagus is much happier now that it has breathing room.



Asparagus and lima beans pre-harvest

Asparagus after the lima bean harvest

Lima bean harvest

Shelled lima beans!

We had a spaghetti squash from our neighborhood squash lady that we needed to use, so we came up with a fantastic dinner.  We roasted the spaghetti squash, and cooked up some angel hair pasta and lima beans.  Then we made a white sauce and tossed everything together, finishing the dish with some crumbled soy bacon.  It was creamy and delicious, and we were very proud of ourselves for coming up with the recipe.

My parents were over, and so I took the opportunity to unload as much produce as I could on them.  Our tomatoes are still going strong, as are the eggplants, chard, leeks and bell peppers.

Tomatoes

Gourds, chard and tomatoes

Hansel eggplants

Mom's haul of bell peppers, eggplant, chard, summer squash, and lima beans

The red peppers look great - I guess when you ignore your pepper plants, that really allows them to fully ripen into their colored glory.  Our orange and yellow pepper plants were duds, but the greens, purples, and reds have produced very well.  The hansel eggplant has been by far the most productive eggplant variety.  I must have sent my mom home with about ten small eggplants, which are the perfect size for roasting.

We've harvested almost all of the squash, and now it's out curing in the barn.  Because our squash yield was so much lower than what I'd hoped for, and because I think I'm addicted to squash, we've supplemented our crop heavily with squash from the squash lady down the street.  She grew a huge range of varieties, so in addition to my own squash I have quite a few of her more rare types to try out, including a marina di chioggia, which is supposed to be great in ravioli and gnocchi, and two Australian blue squashes.  Yum!

My candy roasters and rouge vif d'etampes squash

Giant pumpkin!

We haven't picked the giant pumpkin yet, and I think we'll be leaving it on the vine for at least another week given the mild weather forecast.  My guess is that it's around 95 pounds, Mike thinks it's closer to 150.  I'm not sure how we'll weigh it (or move it) yet, but I will somehow have a final giant pumpkin update in a few weeks.  It's starting to turn a deeper orange - I'm not sure if that means that it's not going to get bigger or what.  We went to the Cumberland Fair last weekend and ogled the truly giant pumpkins, and I was inspired to be a more diligent giant pumpkin grower next year.  Some of the pumpkins were over 1,000 pounds, and two had really nice shapes.  Of course, if we did have a 1,000 pound pumpkin, then Mike would argue that we needed a tractor, so maybe I don't want to go down that road yet.

Still no eggs, but Mike has started giving motivational speeches to the girls.  Some of you have told me your guesses for the first egg day, but I have to confess that if you didn't post a comment, I don't remember what your day was (that includes my own guess).  So, if you want in on the egg laying contest, leave a comment here with your guess on the first day, or send me an email and I'll put a comment in for you.  The guesses that we have so far are:

Mamie:  September 15
Mike:  September 28

Clearly, Mike and Mamie have lost, so the field is wide open.  I'm calling October 15, although I'm also hoping that I'm wrong because I'd like them to lay sooner than that.

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

New potatoes make the potato bug picking worth it

We had a surprise full family visit yesterday, culminating in a garden-centric feast.  Mamie, Taperman, my mom and I all went out into the garden in the afternoon, and I explained to the group that I am getting worried about my potato plants.  Some of the plants have yellowing, curling leaves at the bottom, and I'm not sure if it's from the heat, the potato bugs, or a terrible potato virus/blight/disaster of some sort.  Since I don't know anything about growing potatoes, I've been reduced to googling the problem, which as I'm sure you can guess, never results in reassuring information.  Mamie decided that the only way to be sure that the potatoes are okay is to reach in and grab one.  As was revealed to my family last night, I get oddly nervous about the first harvest of any vegetable from the garden, so I hadn't pulled any new potatoes (or onions) yet.  Mamie doesn't share my fears, though, so she reached under the plants and pulled out a gorgeous baby yukon gold potato!  Once she realized that pulling potatoes is very similar to clamming, there was no stopping her, and we quickly had over a pound of new potatoes.  Mostly yukon golds, but there were a few red potatoes, and several of the "mystery/who knows" unlabeled varieties.

Potato and beet harvest 7-24-2011

Yukon gold potato 7-24-2011

While Mamie and I harvested beets, green beans, and herbs for dinner, Taperman took some great shots of the plants. 

Green apple eggplant 7-24-2011

Broccoli 7-24-2011

Green beans 7-24-2011

Gretel eggplant 7-24-2011

Heirloom tomatoes 7-24-2011

Heirloom tomatoes 7-24-2011

Mamie and me with our harvest

Zucchini 7-24-2011

Sugar snap peas 7-24-2011

Our first onion!  It smelled great - seriously

Swallow eggplant 7-24-2011

The sugar snap peas, green beans, zucchini, herb bed, swiss chard, and lettuce are all producing like crazy, and we've been trying to come up with as many different ways to cook them all as we can.

Last night, we made a frittata with squash blossoms, and served it with roasted new potatoes, beets, and green beans.  It was all fantastic, but I do have to say that I think squash blossoms may be a bit overrated.  It was quite a lot of work to get the bugs out of them, and they didn't have a noticeable taste in the frittata.  Maybe I overpowered the flavor with the herbs that I added, so I'm willing to give them another shot, but I have to say that I wasn't blown away.  The finished dish was lovely, though.

Squash blossom frittata with fresh herbs 7-24-2011

Roasted new potatoes, beets, and green beans 7-24-2011

The girls haven't been suffering, either.  The heat was not kind to the broccoli and cauliflower, so I ripped out one of the broccoli plants that had bloomed, and gave it to the girls, who were extremely appreciative. 

Chickens approaching broccoli 7-24-2011

Aracauna 7-24-2011

The barn cats are also still here!  I have to go out and replenish their food now, but yesterday we saw both Pam and Persephone, so that was encouraging. 

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.