Where did six months go?!

We lost track of our blog, it seems. Was it the crazy work schedule? The garden that took over our lives with weeds and zucchini? Our wedding? Who knows. But here we are at the end of the harvest, and no progress updates to show for it.

Suffice it to say, the garden was a huge success. Because we don't live on site, keeping up with the weeds was our biggest challenge (next to the Colorado potato beetles...yuck!). We averaged two trips a week, and each time we went the weeds were right back where we'd found them the first time. It took a good, solid day to weed the whole garden, so Sam started using a scythe more and more. Rather than weeding fully, we opted to "mow" and just weed directly around the roots.

In the end, we had a bumper crop of crook-neck squash; lost all the corn; had more peas and beans than we could handle (and dried & vacuum-sealed most into quart Masons for storage); a late crop of tomatoes that yielded 5 batches of salsa and several of tomato jam (we would have had enough salsa and tomato jam to open our own shop, had the frost not gotten the rest of the late crop); enough carrots and lettuce for several salads (but the matured faster than we could get there to pick them!); and most of the potatoes, although still in the ground awaiting final dig-up, survived the beetles.

A few early-season photos (mid-summer):

Sam shows off the peas (which grew over the top of the trellis and then tipped it over - definitely a prolific variety!):

The pea vines were quite possibly the most beautiful things in the garden this year:

The dragon carrots:

Our engagement photo, in front of the pea trellis:

Things are Growing!

It's been a long time since our last post, but that doesn't mean we've been slacking. On the contrary, we spend so much time in the garden, there's just no energy left to write about it!

In the last month, just about all the seeds have come up. The limas are a no-show, which is a bummer, but we had hopes that a few late-bloomers might emerge. No dice, and at this point we're thinking that they're not going to show at all.  We've had a week of really warm weather and things are sprouting like mad, so if they're not convinced to get out of the ground soon, we'll give up and replant, or turn their bed into something else.

We had a cold snap last week and lost nearly all the Vermont Crans, Dutch Browns, and Bumbles. Thankfully we had bought the seeds in bulk so were able to replant most of what we lost, but there was a bit of a mourning period for our lost beans. Here are a couple of the survivors, who really only survived by being very late sprouters, so they weren't all the way up when the frost took the rest of the plants:

On the other hand, the beans, radishes and lettuce LOVED the cold and took advantage of it to bust out with new growth.

I accidentally pulled a baby radish while weeding, and am very excited about the color and size so far (yeah, it's upside down. The photo won't stay fixed. Grrr.).

Sam has been working really hard to get the irrigation system up and running (some soaker hoses seen in the lettuce and peas), and has finally set up 2/3 of the garden on timers. Every morning the soakers come on in stages, so the beds all have a nice drink before it gets too hot. We still need to get the other side of the garden set up, but so far, so good.

He has also been busting-hump to get the potatoes in. We put an ad in Freecycle for tires, thinking we'd get a few for doing the seed potatoes, and ended up with more truckloads than we can handle. With some of them, Sam has set up eight potato "beds" (which will be stacked as they grow) for next year's seed potatoes; the rest of the 'taters went into the garden in a long bed, covered with shredded paper:

Within days, we had sprouts:

This photo was taken three days ago, before the hot spell; today you can barely see the hose through the sprouts. Yeehaw!

The garden plan has changed considerably as we have worked in the new space, so we need to redo the map. Someday we'll remember to bring paper and pen to the garden and write it all down! We are waiting another week or two to set out the tomatoes and peppers, but in the last couple weeks we seeded the watermelons, pickling cukes, pumpkins, three sisters (corn/crookneck squash/pole beans), quinoa, replacement beans, potatoes, beets, nasturtium, zucchini, and yellow squash. The blue corn will go into the tomato row as soon as I weed the bed. I pulled up all the black plastic and logs that marked the walkways when we set up the garden, and have started mowing the grass along the paths - seems easier than trying to keep ahead of all those weeds, and it should keep them from going to seed and spreading overmuch.

And of course, I must close with a gratuitous dork shot of the garden master-mind himself! ;)

Spring has Sprung

Warm day - in the 70s - with (finally!) no wind. Last time we were here, we were battling the wind to put up a make-shift chicken fence, after determining that the reason our quinoa has not sprouted is that the chickens have been pecking it up as soon as we seed it. Grrr! Used some blueberry netting and old fence posts from the pig paddock and got a quick chicken-proofer up, which seems to be doing the trick. It is folded over double, and we need to get some white yarn tied to it to keep the blowing down and keep birds from flying into it, but at the very least it makes a strange enough noise in the breeze this way that no birds are likely to come close enough to fly into it!

We have sprouts! Despite the near-frost temps of the last few nights, we are pleased to see several crops sprouting. Peas are up:

As are the beans:

and radishes:

and lettuce:

Did some thinning of the lettuce seedlings, as they came up in bunches of about ten. When I planted the wind or dirt shifting must have gotten to them...that, or the damn chickens. They aren't nearly in the straight row I set up, either, so I suspect the girls' scratching for bugs is to blame.

Inside, we have most of the herbs up (no sign of the stevia yet), the tomatoes are up and thinned, and the peppers have emerged. The Johnny Jump-ups just sprouted, too. :)

Our potatoes arrived in the mail a few days ago: a book-size box full of mesh bags, each labeled and stuffed with tiny potatoes. Can't wait to get those into the ground! We're debating the usage of tires for potato hills, but are concerned about the chemicals that might leach from the tires. Some reading suggests that old tires aren't a concern, but we're not sure. More research needed, perhaps.

Suh-nee Days, Sweepin' the Clouds Ah-Way

After a Saturday morning of Elmo and fighting the cold wind outside at the local Literacy Festival, followed by a Saturday afternoon of cleaning house, it was such a treat to see the sun shining today. We still have wind, but the temp sans wind is around 65, and the snow we feared never came. Nor did the freeze. So far, so good (knock wood!).

Stopped up at the garden today to find that our lettuce have sprouted! First sign of life in the garden. We put in our starter flats of herbs, tomatoes, and peppers; those should sprout soon, thanks to the sunny front windows. We'll have a lot fewer cherry tomatoes than we hoped, as C-Dawg got over-excited about helping and opened the seed packet into the wind. We managed to find about 10 of what we think are the seeds on the driveway, and we planted 'em. If we're lucky, at least a couple will be the cherries.

What went into pots today (all SSE seeds, of course):
Johnny Jump-ups

Amish Paste Tomato

Sweet Pea Currant Tomato (we hope!)

Santa Fe Grande Peppers

Rosemary
Russian Tarragon
Cinnamon Basil
Sweet Marjoram
Thyme
Stevia (for Sam to keep indoors in pots)

We have a bunch of what looks like Queen Anne's Lace sprouting in the garden, which means (sadly) that our Dragon Carrots won't be seed-savable. They'll cross-pollinate. Bummer.

Layout

Today when checking the weather we discovered that there is a chance of rain for the next two days, followed by a chance of rain/snow on Sunday. That is neat. Erin may be up all night knitting little wool sweaters for all the little plantlings. Hopefully, with a little cover, the plants will survive. One wonders how anything survives if a little cold snap can kill off plants - how can they ever over-winter? So, with that logic, they should survive.

I hope the bean plants have heard of logic. Fingers crossed.

~Sam

P.S. We finished the layout for the big garden, which, incidentally, needs a name. "Big Garden" just seems so unworthy for such a beast. The dimensions we have so far (because we can't seem to get it right yet, no matter how many times we measure, scratch our heads, and come up with different numbers) are:

Quinoa Bed: 88' x 15' (1340 sq ft)
Main Beds: 1-6 88' x 5' each (2640 sq ft)
Herb/Misc Bed: 75' x 20' (1500 sq ft)
Total Seed Space: 5480 sq ft

Some measurements are off.  In the end all measurements and data may be wildly inaccurate, according to our soul discretion. In other words, objects in garden may be larger than they appear.

At least, we hope so.

(Retro-Post for April 7)

Got too busy and tired to post yesterday...

Today we planted more Seed Savers Exchange seeds: the Dutch Browns (50 seeds), Henderson Bush Limas (50 seeds), and the Bumble Bees (2 rows @ 20’ each), which we affectionately refer to as “the bumbles.” We also put in about 1/4 of the Dragon Carrots and our radishes (Early Scarlet Globe) in two 10’ sections of two rows each. Why only a 1/4, you ask? Did you just run out of steam? We want to stagger our carrots and radishes so we will have a longer period in which to harvest (and because Erin hates radishes, and will flip her lid if she is forced to deal with more than a few at a time. They’re mainly there to protect the other veggies from bugs). If we put a new crop in every week or two we will have new carrots and radishes for about the whole season, is a nice feature. We expect to harvest our first crop (radishes, of course - the fast buggers) in about 30 days. At least they're pretty.

Wait, I take it back - the radishes will be the second crop. We harvested a huge surplus from our rock crop today, so if anyone out there has need of about a trillion little stones, mostly granite, the perfect size to not be useful for anything, then please let us know. We know right where you can find them. At the present, most are piled into little cairns marking the seed rows, which Erin finds “aesthetically pleasing.” I’m more concerned about who will clear all those cairns once they’re covered in weeds and it’s time to till again!

The beans that were planted on the 5th (Vermont Cranberries) seem to be swelling, a sure sign that germination has begun. Supposing the chickens don’t like ripe beans, we hope to soon have plants big and numerous enough that giants will be attracted to our garden like moths to a wool sweater. (I wonder if we can train them to eat tax assessors?)

Erin put in a small row of nasturtium at the south end of the lettuce/cuke rows.


Just have to put in a photo of the Dragon Carrots - cannot wait to see these come up!

All in all a good day of work.

~Sam

Rainy Day

Light rain today, temp around 60. Considered putting clear plastic over the bean and cuke seeds to keep them warmer, but temp is supposed to go up to 80 with sunshine tomorrow. Overnight temp shouldn't drop below 50. Fingers crossed. At the very least, this is ideal for the lettuce seeds - nice damp, cool first day in the ground.