The long awaited first red tomatoes have arrived! They don’t go very far when they are cherries.
My husband finished a shelf he’s been working on for all our school books.
It’s beautiful! Solid oak.
A Couple Pictures from the Garden
This is my pumpkin patch. I haven’t felt adventurous enough to poke around and see all that is in there. I may wait for a light frost to find out. I did plant a few winter squash in front, but I think they may have gotten smothered in the pumpkins. I had to plant buttercup twice since my seed was so old. I hope I get at least a few buttercup for the winter.
Sweet Corn. I think it has another week or two to go. On the right is my Mammoth Sunflowers. They are about to blossom. If you look closely you can see a dragonfly zooming by above the corn. My yard and gardens are covered in dragonflies. I have never seen so many!
This post is linked to A Weekly Garden Party.
Broccoli
A pathetic cutting from 4 plants. The sudden hot weather caused 3 of my 4 plants to try and bolt.
Now that’s a little better.
The little florets are off the 3 plants I first harvested a couple weeks ago.
Garden Tour
Click for larger pictures.
Potato Patch
Pumpkin and Winter Squash
Corn
Onion and Garlic with Parsnip on the edges
Onions
More Onions and Chard
Lettuce and radishes and lettuce sprouts.
I had planted some really old spinach that never came up so I reseeded with lettuce.
Carrots
Peppers
Tomatoes
Cabbage
Zucchini and Cucumbers
Cole Crops
Kidney Beans
Black Eyed Peas
This was originally Snap Peas, but only a few came up. So I replanted Beans and Cucumbers.
This post is linked to Tuesday’s Garden Party.
Gardening
Here is a picture of my extra large leaf spinach. This is where my spinach went to seed last year. I’m letting it grow so I can collect the seed. This areas is currently the kitty restroom.
The spinach is regular spinach, it’s just amazingly large. The plants have done so well I’m hoping to plant next years seed in the fall.
I put this cloth over my corn. I haven’t had a good corn turnout since my first year at this house. I think the reason is birds. I have many many birds in my garden and more than enough worms to share. But I wont share my corn! I saw some people use chicken wire. But I already had this cloth and it’s easier to set up. When I worked in an organic market garden we called the cloth remay, but that isn’t what it was called when I ordered it. The cloth lets the light and water through and also warms the soil.
Here is some that my children planted in their garden. I had to space the staples every foot to hold up in heavy winds.
Here are some of the Cole crops I planted last week. I picked off most of the outside leaves and placed a cut worm collar around each plant. The cut worm collar is a piece of newspaper 2 inches by 3 inches wrapped around each plant. By the time the newspaper breaks down the stem is big enough that cut worms don’t bother it. My mom always used cut pieces on aluminum cans. I planted my cabbage and kale 3, 2, 3 in a wide row and everything else 2, 1, 2.
The strawberries are starting to look really nice.
See more gardening posts at An Oregon Cottage’s Tuesday Garden Party
Taming a Wild Apple Tree
I finally got up the nerve to attempt to tame the apple tree. It had never been pruned before. When we first moved in the apple tree was not producing at all. I didn’t know what to do, so I just thinned the branches. The following year we had apples.
As I studied the branches this spring I got a little nervous, what I was about to do was drastic. So I had my gardening expert friend to take a look. She agreed with me.
Yikes! I hope it works.
Oh Dickie!
Ducks and Blooms
The ducks are getting big. They are easily 4 times the size of the Turkeys which I got at the same time. I think they are competitive with the Cornish Cross, but I have not yet looked up the feed to meat ratio.
I think the white one may be a drake, but I’m not sure what drake behavior looks like.
The ducks can not tolerate being separated, even for a few minutes. It’s very traumatic. And they do not under any circumstances socialize with chickens.
One of the cherry bushes I planted last year has 5 buds. It’s so small, I’m surprised it has any.
I planted both Black Currants and Jostaberries last year. I’m guessing this is a Jostaberry flower but I’m not sure.
And this would be Black Currant if my original guess was correct.
See more Saturday on the Farm at Linda’s Lunacy
Coldframe
An updated picture of my starts. The empty pots are seeds I planted later.
Here are the plants I bought at the store waiting to get planted.
Things to Be Thankful For
grapes finally planted
ducks that follow
new blueberries
a warrior
a sign almost finnished
Waste Not Want Not
I don’t really like washing individual leaves so I do the thing where you change the water over and over.
Then I poor the water in this bucket.
And then I transfer the water to these big tubs. Most of that water is rain water. I’m currently using the water to water the plants in my coldframes. Potting soil requires a lot of extra watering because it is so light and fluffy. I live in an arid climate, but also I would rather not pump the water out of the ground more than is needed and fill up my septic system faster than necessary.
