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...

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. 

The meteoric rise, and collapse, of the giant pumpkin

So last weekend, with the help of Mike's dental school friends, we installed the big giant pumpkin on the front stoop, completing our fall decorations.  Sadly, this lovely fall scene only lasted a week.  When we went out on Saturday morning, the pumpkin looked like this:

 Which quickly devolved to this by the afternoon:

 And now looks like this:

It's a sad, smelly sight.  So far, neither of us has been brave enough to tackle the removal, although we realize that the situation is only going to get worse.  We did have a lovely stoop for a week, at least, and the smaller giant pumpkin is still in good shape so all is not lost. 

Even though we were very sad about the collapse of the giant pumpkin, we still managed to get through some good garden work on Sunday.  As I've mentioned before, our chard has been incredibly productive for the last three months.  I never thinned the seedlings, though, and so the bed is very unruly.  When Mike harvested a bunch of chard for visiting friends on Saturday, he told me that he thought that most of our good chard was gone.  I figured that this probably wasn't true, but could admit that the overgrown and bug eaten leaves were overshadowing the good chard, so on Sunday morning I thinned out the chard bed.

 

Overgrown chard bed

Newly invigorated thinned chard bed

Clearly, we still have quite a bit of good chard left, and the bed looks much better now that I've removed the leaves that had gone by.  While I worked on chard maintenance, Mike fixed up the gate to the garden.  Lily the wonder squirmer has perfected the art of slithering under the gate to feast on the compost, and I begged Mike to do something to prevent her from getting in so often.  On Friday and Saturday, she pulled out and ate a broccoli stem, coffee filter with grounds, half a gourd, a carrot, and what looked like a pepper.  Can you tell she's a lab?  So Mike decided to lower the gate and put wire behind it so that she couldn't squeeze between the bars.  It took him at least an hour, and he was very confident in his work.

Lily, honey badger that she is, was undaunted.  About 15 minutes after we went inside for a break, I looked out to see Lily happily noshing away at the compost.  Apparently she took one look at the new gate and decided that it would be even easier to just push her nose through the side, which opens the gate just enough for her to squeeze through.  While we're happy that at least one of our dogs appears to be intelligent, we were not pleased that the redesign had not worked.  So now the gate is both latched shut with a caribeener and then tied tightly with rope.  So far, she hasn't figured out a way to get in, but it seems like it's only a matter of time.

After Mike and I were done with our respective garden jobs, we teamed up to plant a bed of garlic, to be harvested next summer.  Since I did such a sub-par job with the onions, I let Mike do the actual planting work, while I separated the cloves.  It feels good to have now three beds of the garden already set for next year (garlic, asparagus, and rhubarb), and soon I'm going to start planning out the rest of the garden for next summer.

Before our last frost, Mike had harvested a lot of peppers, and while he was brewing a batch of winter ale yesterday afternoon he multitasked by also blackening the peppers on the grill.  We had a mix of bell peppers and poblanos, and he blackened them all.  We're going to chop them up and freeze them for chilis this winter.

We've both been doing quite a bit of chicken socialization lately, so we stopped by the coop to say hello to the girls and have another conversation about where it is, and is not, appropriate to lay eggs.  I had a real connection with a few girls, and I like to think my words made a difference because this morning we had our first nest box egg!  So at least one of our chickens is smart enough to figure out that those straw filled comfy boxes are for laying.  We had two more eggs on the floor, but progress is progress.

As the farming season winds down

First, I have now forgiven bad dogs Bullet and Lily.  We found all of the missing chickens hiding under the coop, and Mike has put up electric netting around the sides of the coop.  Bullet and Lily have both been zapped, and are now steering clear of the coop.  I did have to scoop a barred rock out of the giant pumpkin plant earlier today as she had flown out of the yard, so we still have to deal with the issue of chicken stupidity.  Maybe adding some type of roof to the yard?  I'm not sure.  Bad dogs, predators, and stupid chickens are not a good combination.

Repentant bad dogs

Anyway, before the chicken incident I was set to provide an update on how the farm is doing now that we're nearing the end of the season.  We went to a wedding last weekend out of town, and my parents had dog sitting duty.  Before handing the dogs over, I did a big garden harvest to pawn off as many veggies as possible on my mother.  The chard is still going strong - I am definitely going to continue to grow chard over spinach in the future - the fact that it is still so abundant and hasn't bolted is a huge plus.  Next year I may grow less, but still, chard was a good choice.

Our tomatoes are still producing heavily, too.  It's been fun this year to grow the heirloom mix, but I think next year I'll be a bit more picky about the types of tomatoes that I plant.  I'd like more sauce-type tomatoes, and maybe fewer confusing novelty tomatoes (I just never know when to pick the green striped heirlooms that don't ever change color).

Our eggplants have been a nice surprise.  Most of my gardening books talk about how difficult it is to grow eggplant in northern climates, but my eggplants have been pretty productive and low-maintenance.  I haven't had a tremendous harvest of eggplants, but more than I can use myself.  Growing so many different types was fun, and I love the mix of purples, whites and greens in my eggplants.  For this picking, I had a white eggplant and a dark purple eggplant, both of which went to my mom.

I haven't talked much about leeks since my post admitting my errors in planting them, but I'm happy to say that they've grown up well.  The white parts are still a bit short, so next year I'll have to plant them deeper.  I have to say that I don't really notice much of a flavor difference between leeks and onions, but I think the leeks are pretty so I think I'll grow them again next year.  They were also easier to grow than the onions, which are supposed to be incredibly easy, yet mine mostly just died.

We're getting a nice crop of fall carrots, and the last group that I picked was just gorgeous.  The deep purple carrots are beautiful, and I'm very impressed that most of my carrots ended up growing so straight given the number of clumps of sod in my beds.  These were hardworking carrots, for sure.  The stubby carrots in the bottom photo are supposed to look like that, they're an heirloom variety.  I have to admit that my carrots don't really seem to taste any better than regular carrots, but at least they're prettier.

Chard

Harvest for mom

Lovely carrots

My mom used the veggies to make a hearty soup, so I was glad that they were enjoyed.  I am still completely overwhelmed by the bounty that the garden has yielded, and so I haven't been using the vegetables nearly as much as I'd hoped that I would. 

The giant pumpkin continues to get bigger and bigger, although it hasn't turned color to a deeper orange yet.  I hope this means that it's going to continue to grow, but for all I know, it's just going to be a pale pumpkin.  I really ought to have included something in the below picture for scale - so you can get a better idea of the size, the giant pumpkin is about as long as Lily - so, big.  I'm not sure how we're going to move and weigh it yet, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. 

We've had our first light frost, and several of the plants in the garden, most notably the cucumbers, have folded.  Mike and I harvested most of the remaining squash a few days ago just in case, and we now have the squashes curing in the barn.  The Rouge Vif D'Etampes pumpkins are really lovely.  The last two that we picked aren't as deeply red as the first, but they are nearly perfectly shaped, and I'm quite proud.  My two dinky spaghetti squashes never got much bigger, but we had a good harvest of sweet dumplings, and two very big candy roaster squashes.  My white pumpkin is still on the vine, as I'm hoping it will get a bit bigger and whiter in the next week.  We've left the giant pumpkin on the vine too, to see if it will grow more, and we watch the forecast each night.  I'm not sure when the first real hard frost will come, but based on the chill in the air, it feels like it will be soon.

The girls haven't laid their first egg yet and cobwebs are gathering in the nest boxes.  They are now thoroughly accustomed to me bringing them treats, and they all storm the gate of the fence when I walk up to the yard.  If I show up empty handed, I have a lot of angry chickens to confront.  Below, they attack an overripe tomato.  In the last week, they've expanded their pallets to include mashed potatoes and hummus, both of which are quite funny to watch them eat. 

We've also identified the mystery squash growing out of the compost. It's actually an extremely productive gourd plant!  Our neighbor grew gourds in our back yard last year, so some of the old gourds must have ended up on the compost pile.  They're very pretty, and the plant has produced a ton of them, so we'll have some nice seasonal decorations.  Even though I was hoping that the plant would be another winter squash, I'll happily take bonus gourds.

Gourd 9-16-2011

Tomato hornworms. Ick.

The other day when we were re-staking the tomatoes, Mike and I noticed some brown chunks on the leaves of the plants.  After playing a fun round of "eggs or poop" (a common farming game, I'm sure), I consulted the internet and learned that these were tomato hornworm droppings.  I've been dreading the tomato hornworms all summer, as other more experienced vegetable gardeners frequently bemoan these pests.  After three days of fighting them, I have to agree.  Tomato hornworms are incredibly hard to see, as they are green, blend in thoroughly with a tomato plant, and cling stubbornly to tomato leaves and stems.  They are also supposed to be very destructive and can get up to 4-5 inches long, so I have an incentive to find and destroy them as quickly as possible.  In addition to being well camouflaged, tomato hornworms are unpleasant to handpick.  The big ones are very difficult to pull off, and once you manage to get the worm off the tomato plant, the worm makes this creepy clicking sound.  Clearly, this task required much bravery on my part. 

Today I was able to get about seven of them, and found the one upside to having tomato hornworms.  The chickens absolutely love them.  I gave the worms to the girls, and in a matter of seconds they were gone.


Tomato hornworms (with an extra potato bug)

Chickens munching on tomato hornworms

We are heading off on a family vacation to the Cape tomorrow, so in preparation I harvested a good amount of veggies.  I think this is a particularly good looking selection, with carrots, eggplant, beets, summer squash, and zuccini.  I also grabbed some chard, potatoes and bell peppers, which aren't pictured.

Siamese twin eggplant!

Harvest for the Cape

This vacation means I'll be leaving the farm in Mike's hands for the next week and a half.  He told me that he's praying for rain, which I said is a terrible thing to ask for when your wife is going to the beach (although I do sympathize with him - it's nice not to have to water).  I'm hoping to come back to ripe tomatoes and more eggplant.