Home Garden Update mid-April

Wow, I can't believe it's mid-April already and that I haven't posted in a month! I have been reading a lot of blogs though. It's just been very busy with work, life and the garden.

The cold weather and then the hot dry weather has passed and the weather has turned to normal for this time of the year. So.....I finally managed to get the home garden cleaned up this weekend.

The Right Cold Frame Bed

is planted with onions and carrots under the boards. I use Granny's Seed Mat Method.It works great!

The Left Cold Frame Bed

is planted with Asian Veggies, Kale, Collards and Lettuce

The over-wintered Spinach is really taking off!

I harvest this nice big colander of spinach on Sunday

"The Italian" sautéed it with olive oil and garlic....yum!

 

The Peas finally sprouted after our rain this past week!

They're all popping through the ground!

 

I usually plant my early Tomatoes in this bed.

This year I sowed 2 rows of Little Marvel Peas and 2 rows of Carrots.

Slicing Cucumbers will be sown on the right side in about a month

The Herb Garden has been cleaned out.

It was a mess from that Sandy blowing through here last fall!

The Rosemary made it through the winter for the first time!

Lots of Happy Daffodils in the Herb Garden too!

 

In the basement, there are a few Large Tomatoes......

smaller tomatoes......

and even smaller tomatoes!

They will be a nice size when it's time to plant them out.

There are a lot of peppers growing....medium and small

Way too much Celery!!

Cauliflower, Cabbage & Eggplant

The Broccoli has already be planted at the plots.

I'll post on the plots tomorrow.

 

So, how's your garden coming along???

 

Garden Update......busy, busy, busy!!!

Spring is just around the corner! We were blessed with two nice warm days over the weekend. Do you believe it was 62 on Saturday and the mid 50's on Sunday?? So....I went over to the plots to get some work done. This is the best weather for doing this type of work.

I took down 4 of the 5 trellises and laid them on the beds where they will be this year. I forgot the drill-driver both days. So, I couldn't move the last one. I also turned over about half of one of the big beds. I am pleased to report that there are lots of worms!!!

I turned over the one end of this bed where the broccoli will be planted. The garlic is at the other end of this bed.

  

I removed most of the straw from the garlic bed.

 

The bed in the middle was also turned over. This is where I will plant some cauliflower. The two end beds is where the asparagus is planted. No signs of grow yet.

 

As you can see (click on any picture to enlarge), the top of the soil is quite dry for this time of the year.

The raspberries were pruned. I totally forgot to cut them back in the late fall!

I added some additional bunny protection to the fencing. It was too low and we had a bunny living in the garden last year. I managed to get about half of the perimeter finished. Hopefully I will be able to finish it next weekend.

  

There is one full table of starts in the basement. I am in the process of pre-sprouting the peppers and eggplant. By the end of the week, there will be another table going!

 

The greens and lettuce and doing well and......

 

I think it's time to thin the celery!

 

How's your garden prepping coming along???

Harvest Monday................08/20/2012

Since "The Italian" is out of town for a few days, Sophia spent the whole weekend with me. We sure did have a busy weekend!! First, we spent all day Saturday out and about. We shopped, which I really hate. But, it had to be done. I needed some pants for work and of course Sophia needed some things too. Just like any teenager does! We had a great day and then took our neighbor out for dinner. It was the girls night out!

Sunday was a full day of gardening. Before we left for the plots, I checked the two savoy cabbage plants at the home garden I really hadn't looked at them in weeks.

The cabbage on the left is a normal size head of Savoy Cabbage.

The one on the right is the Monster Head....That baby weighed almost 7 lbs!! I really didn't think Savoy cabbage could get that big!

After the great Cabbage Harvest we set off for the plots. That place was like a jungle! Sophia was a big help. She pulled weeds, took a ton of stuff to the compost and of course took a nice nap under the umbrella! When the day was done we had a nice neat garden and a full trunk of produce!

And there was some in the back seat too!

If you ever wondered what 17+ lbs of celery looks like.....

It looks like this!!! Yes, we harvest 17.32 lbs of celery! 

There is no way we need all this celery plus the nearly 4 lbs that was harvest in July. So, Sophia took a couple of bunches and I gave 3 bunches to my mother.There's also some more celery growing in the home garden.

We harvested two nice Sugar Baby Watermelons. 

They weighed in at 15.55 lbs for the two.

We also harvested these two fine beauties.

My first time growing Butternut Squash. These guys weighed in at a little over 10 lbs.

The remaining cabbage at the plots was harvested.

One Savoy, Two each of Tet Noire and Red Acre.

These guys were on the small side.....but, I think we are good in the cabbage department for the year!

The Chinese Red Noodle Beans are really doing well!!

I harvested 4.675 lbs. of them this week alone!

There were also Eggplants, Tomatoes and Peppers harvested this week.

Not pictured are the potatoes I dug last week and didn't get around to weighing until Saturday. 

All in all it we had a great week of harvests!!

Total weighed harvests: 135.34 lbs!!

Beans:

     Dean's Purple Pole Snap - 7.85 oz.

     Chinese Red Noodle - 74.8 oz. 

     Asparagus Red Seed - 8.1 oz

Cabbage:

     Chiefton Savoy - 170.9 oz.

     Red Acre - 61.35 oz.

     Tet Noire - 64,5 oz.

Celery - 277.15 oz.

Eggplant - 42.75 oz.

Peppers:

     Hot & Spice - 15.3 oz

     Sweet - 24.7 oz

Potatoes:

     Yukon Gold - 61 oz

     Purple Viking - 92.3 oz.

     Kennebec - 18.55 oz.

     Red Pontiac - 193.25 oz.

Squash, Butternut - 162 oz.

Tomatoes - 599.75 oz

Watermelon Sugar Baby- 248.85 oz.

Zucchini - 17.6 oz.

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday and see what's going on in gardens around the globe!!

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard.........8/16/2012

With all of the harvesting going on around here and my 11-12 hour days away for work, it's been quite a task keeping up on the preserving! To top things off, last weekend we froze corn. My mother orders corn from a local farm and picks it up within minutes of it being harvested. She showed up on Saturday morning with 150 ears of beautiful sweet corn to be processed!

They pick the corn at 8:30 in the morning. So, Sophia was here at 9 to help me get set-up outside. First, we husked the corn on the round table on the deck. Next we set-up for the Big Sweet Corn Processing.

The Corn was blanched in this pot on a propane burner on the upper porch.

Next, it was cooled in ice water

Then the kernels were removed from the cob. 

We had a great set-up and nice weather! The whole process took us about 3 hours. My mother put her corn in freezer boxes with plastic bags inside. She had those boxes for years. My corn was put on trays, flash frozen and the next day vacuumed sealed in bags. I think we will have enough corn for quite some time! 

The worst part was cleaning up after we were done. The corn sticks to everything like cement. It's definitely not a job to do in the house.

I also froze some Chinese Red Noodle Beans this past week......

and some Celery.

Of course tomatoes were canned this week as well! I hope you're all keeping up with preserving your harvests!!

What's been going in or out of your Kitchen Cupboard Lately???

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard............08/02/2012

This past weekend I finished canning most of our pickles & relish for the year. I made another batch of Bread & Butter Pickles and a double batch of Sweet Pickle Relish for "The Italian". The only pickles that are left to make are some Dill Refrigerator Pickles.

Not the best pic...there was no room in the kitchen for a photo op!

I also chopped and froze the celery that I harvested last week. I was planning to make Eggplant Caponata. But due to a broken pair of eye glasses and lack of nice clothes to wear for work. I spent most of the day on Saturday running around. Ughh..

Tuesday I went to the plots after work and harvested 30 lbs. of tomatoes!! Yippee!!! They are finally coming in!

Since we now have tomatoes, I'm starting to make the Tomato Puree.

What's been going in or out of your Kitchen Cupboard lately????

Harvest Monday ........................07/30/2012

My Harvest Monday post is a little late in the day. It was a busy weekend preserving the harvest. The harvests are getting much better. But, I am still way behind last year, especially with the tomatoes. Hopefully the tomato glut will start this week.

This isn't everything that was harvested this week....but, it will give you an idea of what is coming out of the garden.

A few of my celery plants died and a few weren't looking too well. So, I harvested and froze the celery that wasn't all that happy. There are still about a dozen plants in the ground that are doing very well.

The eggplants are coming in and the peppers are starting.

Some nice pretty tomatoes.....and

some more pretty tomatoes.....and

more pretty tomatoes and also the first Chinese Red Noodle Beans. I think those beans are just gorgeous!

The zucchini are coming in at a steady pace

The first heads of cabbage this year. I was pleasantly surprised at the large head of Savoy Cabbage. There are still several heads that are doing well in the garden.

The cucumbers in the Home garden are producing like bunnies! The cucumbers at the plots are dying off. There have been plenty of cucs coming in to finish up our pickle needs for the year.

While I was doing the Can-Can on Sunday, Sophia found at least a dozen tomatoes and some more beautiful cucumbers in the Home Garden. We thought this guy was pretty cute!! After his photo op, he went straight into the sauce I was making since he was a bit over ripe.

Hop on over to Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in gardens around the globe!

The State of the Plots Mid-July Part 2

In the previous post "The State of the Plots Part 1", I went through Beds #1-4. In this post we will go through Beds # 5-8 and Plot 102.

Click on any picture to enlarge

This is Bed #5

In the front of Bed #5 are French Cantaloupe. I lost one plant so far and it looks like another one is on it's way out.

Behind the cantaloupe in Bed #5 are some more Pickling Cucumbers. They are struggling along just like the other cucs and just starting to produce.

The next in Bed #5 are two Small Sugar Pumpkin plants. They are very happy right now. Let's hope that it stays that way!

Following the pumpkins are a few leeks which I forgot to take pics of. They are struggling with this weather. Next are the cabbage. There are a couple of Savoy, Tet Noire and Red Acre. All of the heads are small and I have yet to harvest one. They were planted late.

This is where the spring Broccoli was planted. I sowed some Great Northern Dry Beans here and covered them with straw. These are starting to pop up too.

The Sweet Peppers are next in this bed. They are also much much smaller then the plants last year. I'm sure we will have enough to get us through the winter. At the end of this bed are two Zucchini plants which I failed to take a picture of. One was sown 2 weeks ahead of the other and are doing well.

Bed #6

The Raspberries and Blackberries are planted in this bed. They transplanted well. Hopefully we will get a late harvest of Raspberries. The Blackberries have some fruit and new shoots on them. Their harvest will be very very small as they were cut way back to transplant.

Due to the small size of the Blackberry transplants I was able to plant celery, onions and Purple Pole Beans in this bed. Next year I don't think there will be much space for any additional crops. The celery is really suffering due to our extreme heat and lack of rain this year. The onions are also very small.

The Purple Pole Beans are doing well and hopefully will start producing soon.

Bed #7 is the Strawberry Bed.

The transplanted strawberries are much much smaller then the roots I put in at the far end.

This is where the Strawberries transition from the transplants to the new roots. Boy, what a difference! They are even the same variety. Hopefully we will have a bumper crop of strawberries next year!

Bed #8 is divided in to 3 parts. 

There is Asparagus at this end. In the front I sowed some late peas where the Favas were planted. I also covered them with straw to hold moisture in so they would germinate.

In the middle of Bed #8 there are 4 Celery plants and onions. As you can see all of the celery is really struggling with this weather. It's a good thing I planted way more then we need to get us through the year.

The onions are so so small in comparison to last year. I really don't know if we will have enough for the year.

There are a few good size onions. But these are Walla Walla onions and they should be twice this size. I'm going to dice them up and freeze them.

The far end of Bed #8 is planted with another variety of Asparagus. I also sowed some peas here.

Last but not least is Plot #102.

Patti & I pulled all of the tall weeds in about 1 1/2 hours. Yesterday, I weed whacked the rest down. Now, we just need to get it tilled. Then we will put up the fencing we have accumulated and start planting fall crops!