Still Here...

Hi, It's been a while since I posted. I've been around, tending to my garden. Just life comes between me and the blog. :-/ I planted garlic last fall, so I will be harvesting those soon. I have been harvesting some scapes (for the first time) and have been sauteing them and loving every bite! I hope things are growing well in your garden! I should be putting up images soon. katie

Harvest count for 2011

Garlic: 32 heads
Potato - Purple Viking: 10lbs 1oz
Potato - German Butterball: 19lbs 8oz
Rapini: 7 lb(s)
Squash - Butternut: 7lbs 0oz
Zucchini - 8 Ball: 5lbs 14oz
Beans (blue lake, dragon's tongue, royal burgundy): 5 lb(s) 9oz
Nectarine: 4lbs 2oz
Zucchini - Black: 4lbs 0oz
Zucchini - Gold Rush: 4lbs 0oz
Strawberries: 4lbs 0oz
Carrots: 3lbs 0oz
Swiss Chard - Red/Fordhook: 3lb(s) 0oz
Zucchini - Vegetable Marrow: 2lbs 12oz
Broccoli: 2 lbs
Apples - Early Summer Red: 1lb 15oz
Tomato - Banana Legs: 4lbs 8oz
Tomato - Riesentrauben: 2lbs 13oz
Tomato - Early Girl: 3lbs 10oz
Asian Lettuce: 1 lb(s)
Cucumber: 1lbs 1oz
Snow Peas: 0 lbs 12oz
Corn: 16 ears
Tomato - Tigerella: 2lbs 7oz
Tomato - Cherry (Volunteer): 0lbs 13oz
Pepper: Sweet Banana - 0lbs 3oz
Apple - Granny Smith: 5oz
Tomato - Roma: 1lbs 3oz.
Apple - Fuji: 0lbs
Apple - Gala: 0lbs
Squash - Delicata: 0lbs 12oz
Sugar Baby Watermelon: 1lb
Tomato - German Strawberry: 2lbs 12oz
Pepper - Jalapeno: 0lbs
Pepper - Sweet Bell: 0lbs
Ruby Seedless Grapes: [NONE THIS SEASON]
Soybeans: [FAILED]
European Plum: [EATEN BY BIRDS]
Almond: [EATEN BY SQUIRRELS]
Burgundy Okra: [FAILED]

As August Ends...

As August comes to a close, I realize that I need to get on uploading pictures. I don't know what my problem is when it comes to doing such a simple task...

Also, my tomatoes are finally starting to produce enough to make salads, pizzas, sauces, and have enough left over to freeze. My one recommendation when freezing tomatoes is to boil them for about a minute and slip the skins off FIRST before freezing. If you try to make sauce out of frozen tomatoes that you never took the skins off, you will have curly skins floating around your sauce as it cooks...you could do that and just pick the skins out as you see them, but I'm trying to be more proactive this year! It really was a pain to find them all...

zukes and most of the green beans are slowing down production so I will be pulling them up this week. I've started a few seeds - lettuce, broccoli, swiss chard, peas - and the rest I will direct seed - carrots, turnips and kohlrabi(first season for me), and maybe some collards. I have to remember to save some room for the garlic that I ordered from seedsavers!

Check on your corn!

Wow, after seeing my corn stalks turn red and the ears on my stalks feeling "empty", I decided to pick one yesterday morning, and I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes...There were yellow corn on them cobs!!!

Well, some of them were just pure starch then since I thought I wasn't picking any corn this year but some were out of this world sweet! I wish I picked most of them sooner! I don't know, but for some reason, I believed that due to unseasonable cool weather and the fact that my ears never had that "filled out" feel to them, I would be just chopping down my stalks and putting them in the compost.

To my delight, I picked 10 ears, boiled as much as was still rather edible, and cut them down to corn kernels. Yum! If you've never had fresh corn picked from your yard and eaten within seconds of harvest, you've never had real corn. I urge anyone to try it at least once!

On Coming Back...

Hi, it has been a while...I was thinking about converting to Wordpress, but my laziness has been my hinderance in that migration project, so I think I will bring over my one (and only) post from over there to here later.

The vegetable garden is in the production business now...I am out there picking beans every day (and I swear I pick the almost-ready beans the previous day too!), the butternut squash is coming along nicely (this is my first season growing this, so it's exciting!), the apple and nectarine trees are near full of ripe fruits, the tomato plants are full of green tomatoes, and the zucchini plants...well, they are just doing their own thing and growing crazily, as they are known to do.

I've also got a few cucumber plants and they are growing well, but so far no cukes.

Oh, and I've harvested my first purple viking potatoes a few weeks ago...the next harvest will probably be this weekend. I have pictures that need posting, yes!

I have been working on another project for the past month - one that entails part of my front lawn. I'll post pics and more info about that later.

I just wanted to say that I am back to this blog and I'm hoping to be able to start posting more soon!

Take care.

PS: I have been updating my harvest numbers as often as needed, so if I don't post anything here, my harvest numbers will reflect the latest!

weekend of rain and growth

This weekend, I was barely able to get in some dirt work - I still had the south-side garden to finish up with loosening the soil, covering with compost, then some cardboard, and a layer of mulch/compost on top of that (called "lasagne" method) - but I got it in late this afternoon. now all the beds have been composted! (late, i know...).

So I have a few more beds ready for something to grow, but I have no seedlings that need placement. I do have a few crowded garden beds that I want to space out, so I'm sure I'll have something to plant. If not, there are always more seeds wanting to be planted!

The zucchini plants are really starting to get large now, very quickly. I think it must've been the heat that we had on Thursday/Friday. The tomato plants (especially the Early Girl that I received free from some real estate people wanting to sell properties) are becoming greener and larger. I also found 2 volunteer tomato plants popping up - one is a san marzano, I believe, and the other one is a cherry tomato.

T planted a whole bunch of nasturtium seeds and I see them all popping up everywhere. We will have to work on his spacing technique, but I can't wait to see them all flowering - it will definitely be a beautiful sight.

The corn plants are growing well. It is now that I realize how terribly close I planted them all together. I just hope they are okay with the snug space they have. I just loved the corn we grew last season!

All except one seed potato that I planted have sprouted, and are gaining speed very quickly. It is so exciting to see a new type of vegetable (to me) flourishing in the first season! I just wonder how high I can mound it and if the hight I can go will be enough for a good harvest. I think we may be getting a pound of potatoes per plant...we'll see.

Garlic Success!

The garlic plants that I planted near the cherry tree were looking a bit wind-swept, yellow, and nearly lying parallel to the ground, so I thought they were probably ready to harvest. It is just the beginning of May so it could've been a bit too early, but...

Sunday, my son and I dug up 20 nice heads of garlic! some were quite huge too! I left the leaves on and braided them all together (thought I'd try, although from what I've been reading, I think I should have let it dry a bit first in a cool/well-ventilated area first before doing so...oh well....learning adventures!) and hung them out on an unused trellis, next to the house where it gets very little sun. The rest of the week should be rather hot and dry, so they should be okay for at least this week.

Now I have to think what I can plant back there...I have some tomato plants in front of that area, so I may plant more back there...or the rest of the peppers that I still have to get into the ground... :-) decisions, decisions!