Garden in July, Eastern NC, Zone 7b

July 2, 2015

I know I’m not the only one who is wondering how it is the beginning of July already. Craziness.

Beginning of JuneBeginning of JulyIt did not rain here in Eastern NC for about a month. I also did not water. The temps were also in the 90s/100s most of the month.

The potatoes (and possibly the corn) are the only plants that suffered from the lack of water. That and the fact that I put my 6yo in charge of bug duty (6yos just aren’t as diligent as adults – imagine that), they all died back without producing much at all. Oh well, there’s always next year.The section above was also planted in a new BTE section, so that did not help. This section of potatoes that are dying off but are not dead yet were planted in a higher section, getting less rain, which is interesting – I would not think they would have done better. However, this area is a 2nd year BTE section so…

The old potato patch was planted in peas and salad greens. The peas have been ripped up and all that is left in that section right now are greens that are going to seed. Those will go to the chickens and this section, which is shaded most of the day, will house my fall and winter seedlings, if ever I get the energy to plant them.At the beginning of June, the cabbages were sizing up and I had not seen any cabbage moths so I uncovered them. BIG mistake. The cabbages, broccoli, and kale are now all ruined. Lesson.Learned.Some are still decent. Most are not. Check out all those cabbage worms. The ruined brassicas are being fed to the chickens each day. Between these and the weeds, which grew like crazy once we did start getting rain about a week ago, the chickens are getting enough food from the garden, they do not need any chicken feed. I still give them some because…I don’t know…I’m a slave to those spoiled egg makers. 😛

Last year I stopped giving them feed AND forgot to give them enough food from the garden some days and they did an early molt. Since I do not have enough energy (though I am getting more) to make sure they get garden food every day, we feed them chicken feed as well. One day, one day…

Speaking of weeds…The children spent May weeding all of the sections where I put fresh horse manure (NEVER.AGAIN.). Most of June, nothing was weeded because I did not have the energy to even tell the kids where to weed. At the end of June, it started raining a lot so the weeds have really been vigorous!

We have gone out there every day this week and weeded until we fill the garden cart, then we dump it for the chickens. This equates about 3 buckets per person. By doing this, we have gotten about 2/3 of the garden weeded in about a week. Very impressive! Now we need Daddy to haul mulch for us so the weeds won’t come back!

Anywho, on to more pictures 🙂 Here is the carrot/beet patch, turned into melon/summer squash patch. Most of the carrots and beets have been pulled, while the melons are sprawling and the squash plants are producing baby squash. I would LOVE a cattle panel to be able to grow the melons on but we don’t have a truck to transport it from the store to here so… 😛 Maybe one day we can bribe someone to do that for us. It would save SO much room! It is amazing how much watermelon plants spread! Check out the watermelon vine below. ONE seed and it is already spreading into my sweet potato patch!This section has tomatoes on the right, patty pan, zucchini, and spaghetti squash in the middle (along with a holey cabbage), and lots of weeds in the background (those were actually pulled this morning).

We are seeing some watermelon fruit, so that’s always fun 🙂 We are also seeing some fruit on our butternut squash.Whenever I plant seeds or seedlings, I NEVER leave enough room! It always seems like such a waste of space to space them out properly when they’re little! Then, in the middle of the summer, I regret such foolishness 😛 Like when it comes time to harvest cucumbers…

What else? Let’s see…our tomatoes are sizing up…The onions look like they will be ready to harvest soon (some are popping out of the ground).My first year of planting flowers and I have no regrets! I love seeing all the pretty colors 🙂 The sweet potatoes are starting to spread. I need to plant the rest of the slips that are growing in the pots before it is too late. I also should be getting my late season potatoes soon from Sand Hill Preservation.

Lastly, on my garden list, is my corn, pole beans, and sunflowers. In years past, I have planted corn by itself (knocked down by storm) and corn with pole beans (less knocked down by storm but still some). Last year, I planted sunflowers for the first time and I noticed they never got knocked down by storms. So this year, I thought I would plant my corn with sunflowers! I thought it was genius. Not so much.

1. The sunflowers grew faster than the corn and beans and subsequently shaded them.
2. Someone told me (after I planted) that beans do not do well with sunflowers.

These beans were ones I grew and saved seed from last year. Now, they are not producing at all. Sad. The corn is pitiful. I don’t think we’ll get even an ear. Nothing I can do about it now except make a big, bold note about it in my gardening journal and learn for next year! (six year old stood next to the corn for reference)The section above has never had manure on it and was only covered in woodchips two years ago. That could have something to do with the stunted growth as well. However, this section never had manure in it and was covered less than a year ago. The corn is even more pitiful here but the sunflowers (same variety) are outshining those in the previous patch. Amazing how microclimates work! If you have been reading my other posts, you know we have had a critter issue this summer like no other. Our strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries were mostly taken from us. Very sad. I was not able to freeze any and normally I freeze 10 gallons easy. My next thought goes to the melons — I need to figure out something before they ripen and are stolen from us as well. Suggestions?

Chickens

We are still hatching out chicks. Another hen went broody this week. Our first Australorp. Previously, we’ve only had Orpingtons go broody.

We had at least 3 chicks hatch out last week but something got into the dog crate, ate two of them and 2 eggs and got out somehow. I assume a snake but we don’t know how it got in (the last time a snake got in, the door was off the crate – this time it was on) and I don’t know why it would eat 2 chicks and 2 eggs but leave one chick (though I’m thankful).

Also, because of miscommunication, the door to the coop was left off one night and a mama hen and her two chicks were taken away by something 😦 This mama originally hatched out 4 chicks but left 2 out in the rain one day so they died. They were in a caged-in area in the coop so thankfully, whatever got them, could not get to the other chickens roosting in the coop.

Although we are upset about the deaths, we are thankful no more chickens or chicks have died because of whatever they were getting into before we moved the run.

With all of the broody hens (5 in total) and eggs put under them (25), we were able to collect 185 eggs in the month of June (about 6 eggs/day). It is interesting to see how few eggs we are getting compared to last year (our hens’ first year laying). Last year we were getting about 1egg/hen/day. This year we are getting about 1egg/hen/2days. The eggs are bigger but still…

As I type this month’s garden update, it seems sad that many things are not doing well. However, other summers when I have had morning sickness, I was unable to do a garden AT.ALL. So the fact that I am able to do what I can is a blessing.

This month I need to:

• Continue to weed and mulch the garden
• Plant the fall/winter seeds
• Plant the rest of the sweet potato slips
• Figure out a way to keep critters out so we will have some fruit (melons) from the garden in August and September

I will try to continue to succession plant but my energy level is just not there yet. Last month, I was not able to do anything in the garden. This week, I have been able to work for about an hour in the garden. When I get all of my energy back in September, watch out! But until then, I just have to go at this slow, baby-growin’ pace. Such is life 🙂

How is your garden growing? Any tips you would like to throw my way?

I am linking up with FarmHopFriday today

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Garden in June, Eastern NC, Zone 7b

June 4, 2015

I have been looking forward to this post for a couple of weeks now. There is SO much to share – beware: this is a LONG post with LOTS of pictures 😀

Beginning of May

Beginning of JuneLoving all the green! At first glance, the peas that I was worried about (yellow) greened up on their own, the peas surpassed the cabbage hoops, the fruit bushes and trees have really filled out! A lot more green altogether. Love it! 🙂

As always, I’ll start from the front of the picture and work my way to the back:

Shaded Patch…quite the hodgepodge. This is shaded most of the day. It is more of an experimental area than anything. Lettuce Peas Beans More lettuce (maybe if I harvest them small (rather than heads), they won’t be as bitter?) Pretty pitiful patch of spinach another sowing of lettuce Kale and some carrots

Corn, Sunflowers, Beans, and Melons (Patch #1)the section by the driveway is doing much better (see pic below) (green and beautiful above, yellow and pitiful below – same patch) I threw some chicken manure on the yellow corn. This week has been really rainy so I am hoping all of the compost tea will help with the color and growth.

Peas and CabbagesWe are harvesting LARGE amounts of peas every other day.Cabbages are not ready to be harvested but they are sizing up nicely. I am going to uncover them and see if they are healthy enough to withstand ‘the elements’ (ie. bugs). Here is a recently weeded and mulched section. So pretty 🙂 Potatoes. Doing well. Flowering more than in past years. I assume that means they are healthy. I can’t wait to harvest them but I am trying to be patient 🙂

Carrot and Beet bed: I just realized I don’t have a picture for that bed! We are harvesting carrots and beets now. YUM! I’ll post pics on Harvest Monday, for sure 🙂 I planted a row of melons where we have ripped up lettuces. A friend is giving us a cattle panel so the hope is they will climb that and not overtake our garden. We’ll see.

Summer Squash, Tomatoes, Ground Cherries These are the smaller of the tomatoes. The larger ones are setting fruit but I found horn worm droppings on them yesterday so I’m going to have to keep my eye out! Our summer and winter squash seem to be doing well (though I’ve already found 4 squash bugs – HATE those things!!!). The cucumber plant in the pic above actually has baby cucs on it now 🙂

The ground cherries have always had holes in them but continue to grow. I do not know the culprit but I assume they are okay for now?

Onions and Celery. Between our larger tomatoes, we have onions and celery growing.

Raspberries are starting to ripen. We have been able to harvest about 7 in June so far 🙂

Crops planted in the ‘new’ raspberry bed: I had some extra room in the raspberry bed so I planted some kale, beans, lettuce, and carrots.

Blueberries: bushes are LOADED! Just waiting for them to ripen! We typically get our first harvest mid/late June.

Broccoli: nothing is heading up but I’ve never had such healthy broccoli!

Strawberries: the plants eaten down are starting to bounce back.Looking healthy! See the fencing falling down to the right of the picture? I didn’t notice and that night, something got in there and ate most of the berries 😦 The fence is back up and hopefully the strawberries are, once again, protected.

More Corn, Beans, and Sunflowers: much healthier than the patch by the house.Greener, and growing bigger, faster. There are quite a few crops I am missing…more sunflowers and zinnias, kale, sweet potatoes, more tomatoes, more onions, more spinach…I am planting every couple of weeks but one sprout looks like another so I spared you 🙂

Chickens & Eggs

We harvested 223 eggs in May. Down 50 from April. We currently have 2 mamas with their babies and another broody sitting on eggs. I thought we were done with broodies; and frankly, I was ready. Then another one decided she was ready to be a mama.

Thinking long term, we need to keep hatching chicks in order to feed our family and others. Right now, with our 16 hens (12 layers), we are getting about 6 eggs a day. That is barely enough to feed our family. I would like to get enough eggs to feed other families as well. In order to do that, we need to keep hatching them out (do you hear me rationalizing?)!

What is going on in your garden? I am linking up with Green Thumb Thursday today.

Planting

April 23, 2015

Chicks Are In!

The chicks were able to sleep in their new coop Wednesday night. My husband still needs to give them a roost and I still need to paint it but they’re in!(This is not the final product (before we put the door on or did any detail work). It is very make-shift but it gets the job done 🙂 ) (For size comparison)

Planting

Besides building the coop, I was able to plant some warm-weather seeds and transplants.

I have planted a three-sister’s garden for the last 3 years. I plant it more for a space saver than to improve the soil. Chicken manure and woodchips take care of that 🙂 I read that letting beans climb corn helps keep the racoons away and steadies the corn so it is less likely to fall. I think the racoon deterrent works; however, every year, we have had a big storm right before harvest time. About half of the corn falls and then nothing deters the racoons because the plump corn is on the ground!

SO, the latest thing I read was to plant the corn with sunflowers to keep them from blowing over. With the big storms, only a few of our sunflower plants fell so I thought that was a good idea. I planted corn and beans (two of the three-sister garden) in one row and sunflowers and cucumbers in another row. I alternated rows, planting 4 of each. AFTER finishing, I thought, ‘uh, oh’ – the corn rows are 30″ away from the next corn row. Will they not pollinate each other? Ugh. It’s already done.(You may be able to see the rows in this picture? The darker ones I planted yesterday but seeds are actually planted all the way to the tree – they were planted the day before)

I planted another patch of corn in a different section of the garden and made a sunflower border around it so the corn will have a better chance of pollinating but will still have the support of the sunflowers. It will be an interesting experiment.

I also buried my sweet potatoes this week. I covered some pots with plastic a couple of weeks ago to heat up the soil. This week, I put sweet potatoes in with soil around the sides. These were sweet potatoes that I harvested last fall. They have made it all winter and we are still eating them. What’s more, they are SUPER sweet (get sweeter with time)! I digress. After putting the sweet potatoes in the pots, I covered them with mulch and then covered the pots back with plastic. I’ll uncover the pots in a few weeks, or whenever I see slips growing. This is what I did last year and our slips AND sweet potatoes did really well!(Already had a few sprouts in storage) Speaking of sweet potatoes, as I was planting corn and sunflowers this week, my daughter spotted 2 of the 3 sweet potato slips that had died (or so I thought) from the frost Easter morning. They live! We were excited…until I realized not only did those live, I am growing my own slips, AND I’ve ordered 24 more slips…aaaaaand no room! I had a little internal freak out as I looked at how little room there is for sweet potatoes this year. Once I finish planting everything that needs to be planted this week, I am going to rip up a bunch of tarp to try to make more room.

I planted snap beans (purple and green), tomato, pepper, and ground cherry seeds early this week. The greenhouses were looking pretty good so I planted most of those out as well. I still have quite a bit more to plant…and tarp to rip up…and I’m still having to deal with the covers for our low tunnels. The wind has been crazy lately. I anchored the insect barrier down and that helped but The covers are still blowing off completely when we get a big gust. Suggestions?

I am thankful we are dealing with this now because I am planning on using low tunnels and covers a lot this winter (when the wind is just as strong) and I would rather figure it out now than have to deal with it in the winter when it is much colder and crops being uncovered would ruin the them completely.

Questions for you:

• Thoughts on the corn spacing?
• Suggestions on how to deal with wind and covering crops?
• Can I plant my sweet potato slips in the same bed where I just harvested garden potatoes (not the same family but still not sure if it is wise)?
• And finally, wanna come expand the garden for me so we will have room to plant all of my sweet potatoes?

Harvest Monday

August 4, 2014

This is the last week of blueberries and the end of strawberries is coming soon. It was a good run. I am hoping watermelons and raspberries are next on the fruit menu. I’m not as hopeful about cantaloupe this year, unfortunately 😦I actually didn’t notice this until the day after I took this photo…look in the center of the photo, behind a cantaloupe leaf. There is a dark, baby cantaloupe! I am still not holding out much hope for it ripening because if you zoom out… You can see I planted it at the base of a forest of sunflowers. There are actually two cantaloupe plants. Neither are growing very much because of all the shade they are getting!

We’re still harvesting about 2 zucchini and cucumbers each day. We are getting enough beans to eat them about 3x/week.(Another spaghetti squash was found when ripping up the corn patch.) Our tomato harvests are still going strong; though we are still letting them ‘counter-ripen’ because of the splitting.All of our red potatoes we were storing in the basement have been eaten. Now we are on to Yukon Gold and Purple potatoes. I have been harvesting the potatoes from the most shaded part of the patch to the part that gets the most sun. The question is, are they getting bigger as I pick them because they are getting more sun? or because they had more time to grow…?Even with all of our corn issues, we were still able to harvest a 5 gallon bucketful as we were cleaning out the patch.My daughter was able to harvest her first pumpkin (she kicked a pumpkin off the porch last fall…Voila!)We are continuing to harvest and dry marigolds to feed the chickens this winter. Hopefully, between these and sunflower seeds, our feed bill won’t be quite as high.

We are loving all of the free (other than seed cost), healthy (no spray, organic or otherwise) produce! 🙂 Here are some ways we consumed it this week.

We had pizza one night. One was veggie pizza with our peppers, zucchini, and tomatoes. The other was a kale (ours), artichoke pizza. We had snaps and spaghetti squash as sides.

Another night, we had bean burgers, roasted potatoes, steamed corn and snaps, and zucchini quiche. Everyone had already started to dig in before I remembered to snap a picture 🙂 This is easily my favorite meal and seeing how everyone asked for seconds, I don’t think they hate it too much either 😉 Head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions to see what everyone else was able to harvest this week!

Corn Patch, The Next Phase

August 1, 2014

2013 Corn

I tried to plant a 3-sister’s garden with corn, pumpkin, and pole beans.

You are supposed to plant the corn first. Then, when the corn is 4 inches tall, you are to plant the beans and squash.I let the corn get too tall so none of the pumpkin produced and only a few beans climbed the corn. Raccoons got into the corn – ate most of it, in fact. The only corn that was untouched were the ones with beans climbing up them.

2014 Corn

So this year, I tried again. Being 8mo pregnant at corn planting time, I knew there was a good chance I would be unable to plant the beans and squash when the corn reached 4 inches tall so I just planted all of the corn, beans, and squash at the same time.

I planted twice as many seeds as needed because you never know what germination is going to be. I learned my lesson. Only one seed per hole next time. I would rather have spotty germination, which has never been an issue, than a crowded spot that gets less sun and therefore produces poorly.

Because everything was planted at the same time, the beans shaded out the corn. I had to pull some beans later in order to give some of the corn a chance.

Eventually, the beans did what I planned for them to do. There was one mishap in which a bean vine choked a corn cob but it only happened to one of them so it was not a big deal.Most of the squash was decimated by squash bugs. Only one spaghetti squash survived (barely) and one butternut squash is still going strong. The cucumber plants did well. I have always grown cucumbers up a trellis with not much luck. This year, I planted them in the shade of the corn and sunflowers and they have done so well! Yay! 🙂 The point of the squash is to suppress weeds. Weeds are not much of an issue with a Back to Eden garden and the squash kind of just got in the way. I may just do beans and corn next year.

When it came time to pollinate, we had a huge storm (a couple, actually). Most of the pollen was blown away. Subsequently, most ears are not pollinated on the bottom of the ear, many have spotty pollination, and some are not pollinated at all. Also, most of the stalks fell. Most of those righted themselves but about 1/6? remained fallen.

We were picking and eating the corn as needed until the other night…Raccoons. Who needs to worry about climbing stalks when they’re laying on the ground?! They got about 8-10 ears. Sad 😦 So we went ahead and ripped up all of the corn and beans. The beans were just to deter the raccoons. I left the butternut squash and cucumber plants. Everything else was ripped up, cleaned up and chicken compost was raked in.

2015 Corn

1. Plant ONE seed/hole.
2. Plant dry beans (pinto/black) with corn, so as to not waste seeds (both can be harvested at the same time).
3. Maybe forgo planting squash?

Fall Garden:

1. I ripped up all of the corn and beans and the kids hauled it to the chickens. (butternut squash plant and cucumber plants were left)
2. I spread compost over the whole patch (two bucketfuls) and raked it in.
3. I marked off (with sticks) a square in the middle of the patch (6’x7′) to plant carrots & beets.

4.  I placed carrot seed mats (per the late, great Granny) down and covered them with compost lightly so they would not blow away. 5.  I planted peas on the border of half of the patch (2 ft all the way around). I will plant the rest of the border of the patch in a week or so in order to space out the pea harvest this fall. 6.  I covered all of the seeds completely with compost, tamped them down… 7.  and covered with mulch. I covered the carrots lightly, to just hold in moisture. The peas could be covered a bit more heavily. I will plant the second half of the corn patch with more peas and carrots and beets in a week or so. My thought is that I will be able to harvest the peas easily all the way around as two feet is not a far reach and the root crops will be ready to be harvested by the time the peas are ready to be ripped out. Hopefully it works out — I’ll let you know! 😀