Harvest Monday

July 6, 2015

We harvested our first tomatoes this week 🙂 Right on schedule! We also harvested our first blackberry. We moved the blackberry plant this spring (we’ve had it 8 years and it never gave us fruit where it was previously) and it is growing so much and fruiting beautifully. Other harvests included:

• cucumbers
• onions
• zucchini
• patty pan squash
• strawberries & blueberries (here & there)
• beets
• carrots
• potatoes
• coriander (I used all of my cilantro seeds so I let some go to seed – cilantro all winter!)
• celery (potato salad)

Beets went to neighbors and potatoes were turned into fries and potato salad. Yum!First tomato was given to neighbors. Carrots are eaten raw for lunch.Cucumbers are eaten for lunch and when we have too many, the chickens enjoy them.(zucchini, patty pan, tomatoes) I normally do not have much luck growing onions but this one looks good! So far so good 🙂My lovely husband grilled the onion, zucchini, and patty pan squash for me on the 4th. It was such a treat since I can’t stand to smell anything cooking inside and I have been unable to eat any veggies this past month. I ate these up, no problem 😀

I have slightly more energy in the mornings (such a blessing!) so we are really getting the garden weeded. We neglected it for a month or so. After only a week of weeding (a wheelbarrow full each day), we are about 3/4 of the way through. I hope to finish up this week and start spreading mulch to keep the weeds at bay.

I try to succession plant almost everything every two weeks, depending on the season. However, for the past month, I have not planted anything. So this week, with my newfound energy (for an hour 😉 ) I planted melons, squash, beans, cucumbers, cabbages and broccoli (for the fall garden).

What are you up to in your garden? Check out what’s happening in gardens around the world at Daphne’s Dandelions.

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Harvest Monday

May 4, 2015

We are still harvesting spinach every other day.We were able to harvest a bit of lettuce and cilantro this week for the first time!

We went to a U-pick strawberry farm early in the week and stocked up for jams this winter.My neighbor’s overwintered kale is loving the cool weather we’ve been having. We’ve picked about 3 grocery bags-full for juicing.My daughter planted some onion seeds last fall and left them over the winter. One survived and just started to go to seed so she went ahead and harvested it this week.We are nearing the end of our stash of tomatoes and sweet potatoes 😦 We no longer eat sweet potatoes. I am saving the last few for the baby 🙂 I used most of the tomatoes this week to make just over 4 quarts of marinara sauce. My husband asked if I could make a marinara-scented candle. The house smelled SO yummy!I just finished taking pictures for my monthly garden post. Most things are sprouting, even with our cool weather this week. It is supposed to warm up considerably this next week so hopefully our beans and corn will catch up with everything else.

What are you harvesting? Check out what other gardeners are up to at Daphne’s Dandelions today 🙂

Harvest Monday

March 10, 2014

Yet another week of crazy weather – sleet, ice, rain, and 65 degree weather! I was unable to do much in the garden this week until the weekend.

Greenhouses

Nothing from the celery yet. Some seeds are starting to sprout though:

Broccoli

Onions (first time sprouting my own onions…could have planted more/greenhouse)

Flowers (these are red sunflowers – sprouts look purple – but foxglove & yellow sunflowers are sprouting as well)

This week is supposed to be much warmer so hopefully, there will be many more to follow.

Garden Chores

I spent the weekend expanding mulch to the driveway. I have found that a garden, whether a raised bed or a BTE garden, surrounded by grass (especially bermuda grass) will quickly become overwhelmed by said grass. So, we try to have our gardening area surrounded by quite a bit of mulch to

1. Deter the grass and
2. Prepare new ground for expanding the garden in years to come.

My husband’s work moved offices recently. Those big moving boxes are AWESOME when it comes to covering a lot of area! Hopefully we can find more of those huge boxes soon! 🙂

Finished Product. Looks great! Still a lot more area to cover!

Harvest

Still just harvesting eggs. Fifteen a day! We are very excited about this. We caught the chickens eating eggs a week ago but now we check 3 times a day and the problem has seemed to resolve itself. yay 🙂

The broody hen is still sitting. One week down, two more to go!

Some weird happenings

• Every once in a while, we’ll find a few of her eggs (marked by an X) in other nesting boxes!
• Also, we started with 10 eggs and now just have 7. We have no clue what happened to them. Our nesting boxes do not have backs to them and since some of her eggs have been kicked out of her nesting boxes a few times (in the front), I would not doubt it if we found them later behind the nesting boxes. I don’t want to move the nesting boxes now because I do not want to disturb her. We have looked and have not seen them but I don’t know where else the eggs could have gone!

Are you harvesting anything green? I cannot wait until that day comes! Check out what others are doing in their gardens at Daphne’s Dandelions.