Garden in September, Eastern NC, Zone 7b

September 2, 2015

Beginning of AugustBeginning of SeptemberThe most noticeable difference between the beginning of August and the beginning of September is the lack of sunflowers. However, there are many more differences, if you look a bit closer. For one, we have electric fencing all around the garden, to deter the raccoons and groundhogs.

Walking through the garden, to the left, I have more brassica seedlings sizing up under shade cloth. (planted 2 weeks ago) (broccoli planted mid-July. may transplant these next week)

To the right, there is the former potato patch with one struggling winter squash. Further to the right is the former sunflower patch with some leftover watermelon and cantaloupe plants. I need to put some caging over them to protect them from the crows.Moving on is the former cabbage patch (with some volunteer tomatoes). I have tried planting carrots and peas here. The carrots are going to be replanted but the peas are trying to poke through. I assume it was just too hot for the carrots to sprout but I can’t figure out why the peas did not germinate well. I planted peas elsewhere in the garden that are doing great. This spot has more shade but not an extreme amount and both places have plenty of manure and compost. Conundrum…Moving along, in the former melon patch, I am planting all of my leafy greens (spinach, lettuce, kale) for the fall. To the left and right of this patch, are my ugly (but still producing) tomato plants. (still getting about a gallon of tomatoes/day)

I have some boxes that are empty right now. I will plant brassicas in half of them and carrots and beets in the other half shortly. To the left of the boxes are the strawberry patches and the raspberry patch. Strawberries are trickling in (they do better in the spring). The raspberries give us a wonderful treat in the fall! I need to prune all of the raspberry canes that produced this year. I also need to replant ALL of the MANY raspberry shoots that have popped up everywhere! I haven’t decided where I want them though…(at the top of the photo, outside of the trellises and even outside of the fencing – raspberry shoots everywhere!) (We get a nice handful each (all 8 of us) every other day – not too shabby 🙂 ) (more just starting to form)

To the far right of the boxes is the old potato patch and my daughter’s old garden (she ripped it up at the end of August – she was tired of harvesting so everything was rotting). OH! And the tunnels! Don’t want to forget the tunnels! The former broccoli and kale beds (under tunnels) house beautiful purple beans currently (as well as some melon plants).Under the tree, there is quite the hodge-podge.(another round of beans to the left, flowering cilantro to the right, a cucumber plant in front of the tree…and in the bottom of the photo – our fall peas!)

This was a new section. Earlier this summer, we ripped up tarp that was laid here years ago and put down chicken manure and wood shavings from when we cleaned out the coop.  (all of the dark mulch is where the tarp was ripped up)I was not going to plant in it until spring but I was running out of room when it was time to plant more peas/beans so I gave it a shot. Everything is doing well here (the beans to the left were just planted a couple of weeks ago). The peas are ready to be trellised.At the end of the garden, we have the sweet potato patch (partially eaten) and the (other) former sunflower patch. (sweet potato blooms are a good sign though, right? 🙂 )

I will harvest the sweet potatoes sometime in October, around the first frost. I am not expecting as many sweet potatoes as last year but I will have about 13? or so varieties as compared to last year’s one. We are going to taste test these, decide which ones we want, and will save many for slips for next year.

Trees

The trees seem to be doing well. They are growing every year. The ones in the mulch grow better than the ones in grass. However, still no fruit. I don’t know what I can do to remedy this. I am going to just keep adding compost around the trunks, like I do with the rest of the garden, continue to cover them with mulch as we are able, and be patient. Maybe one day we will not have to buy fruit at the store! (the dream)

Chickens

We actually harvested MORE eggs in August than June or July! I am pretty sure it is because some of our spring-hatched chicks have started laying. I do not see any red combs but there are some eggs that are significantly smaller than the rest (our other hens are 2yo) and our older hens are moulting so that would be the only logical reason we are getting slightly more.

Since the children do such a great job taking care of the baby chicks, I told them I would pay them once their chicks started laying (after taking out the cost of feed). So now, we are keeping up with how many eggs we are collecting each day AND how many small eggs we are collecting. I’m excited for them – we’ve had such a hard time keeping chicks alive (btwn snakes, foxes, other chickens, and bad mamas leaving them out in the rain… 😦 )As a matter of fact, our latest batch of chicks (and last for this year) is not fairing well either. Of the 5 hatched out, one was killed by other chickens before we got a chance to separate them. This past week, one was taken by a snake, one was found dead in the coop one morning, and the two left are sluggish most of the day. I am not expecting them to make it but don’t know what’s going on! We have lost 1/2 of the chicks we have hatched out this year 😦

The older chickens are doing a great job being our soil manufacturers, though. This is the first year I have been able to cover the whole garden with chicken compost from the run! Exciting 🙂What does your garden look like that the beginning of September? Are you able to plant a fall/winter garden? What do you use for protection for your plants during the winter? Are you drowning in weeds? Have you given up? Check out backtoedenfilm.com and see how many people around the world are gardening with minimal weeding and watering!

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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.

Harvest Monday

August 11, 2014

Harvests:

We continue to harvest tomatoespepperszucchini, cucumbers,This is our last yellow squash. I had to finally rip up the plant. Most of the squash was rotting before it grew to a harvestable size, it was crowding out many tomato plants, and the squash bugs were starting to take over.

…and beans. We are getting enough beans from our garden to eat fresh about 3x/week but our neighbor planted too many beans and did not want any of them to go to waste so one day this week, we went over there and picked 5 gallons of beans, snapped, blanched, and froze them. We are good with beans for the rest of the year! 🙂We are also still getting a strawberry here and there and some kale as well. No pictures of potatoes but we still have about half of the patch left to be dug up. I am hoping it will last us until the sweet potatoes are ready…when is that, exactly? October, I think?

Fall Garden:

My kale and cabbage seedlings that were doing so well were attacked by cabbage worms this week. I know I need to cover them but I wanted to wait until later in the season because covering them also means it is hotter conditions for the seedlings and in August, I am looking how to make the seedlings cooler. What I need to do is rip the screen out of the window frames and use it to cover the seedlings but I can’t seem to find our wire cutters to make the hoops smaller and the screen is not big enough to cover the entire area as I have it covered now. I decided covering the area (though making the seedlings warmer), is the best bet right now.

Tomatoes: Our early blight is getting worse. It may have to do with our very wet summer. As I was pruning this past week, I had to rip out four tomato plants that had finally given up. We are still able to harvest tomatoes but it is only a matter of time. It will be interesting to see if we get enough tomatoes, even with all of our issues, to last us until next year, as far as enough salsa and marinara sauce. We’ll see.

Preserving:

It has cooled down this week quite a bit (mid0-80s) and it has been rainy so I baked all the bread to feed us for the next month, blanched and froze corn and green beans, and made marinara sauce for the first time.

I filled up the Vitamix 5 times with tomatoes. I ran it outside because the baby was asleep. 🙂 (this is a variety of tomatoes – indigo purple, roma, early girl, black krimm, and homestead)

This filled the crockpot twice. It took 20 hours to cook the tomato juice down to tomato sauce each time. I did this all in a row in our 9yo crockpot and by the end, it cracked 😦 Off to find a new one.(mid-way into cooking) (fully cooked down tomato sauce)

I then sauteed onions, garlic, celery, and sweet red peppers from our garden, added them to the tomato sauce with herbs, and let it cook for about 30 more minutes. In all, this made 3 quarts of marinara sauce.  The only work involved for me was making the marinara sauce. And all of this from one week of tomatoes. Not too shabby 🙂

I guess I just need to space out the heating of the crockpot. Until we get another one, I will be freezing our tomatoes whole. I do not like preserving but there are definitely benefits to doing it. I still want to be able to harvest year-round from our garden but preserving adds variety in the winter and helps out if certain crops fail.

I am all about easy though. I freeze instead of canning…use the vitamix instead of peeling and deseeding my tomatoes. I am also all about cheap/no cost. I try to freeze more in jars (I already have) than in bags that have to be bought.

If I have the room in my freezer, I like to freeze my tomatoes whole and preserve them in the winter, when I want to heat up my kitchen. What about you…are you preserving your harvest or just eating soley in season? I would LOVE an outdoor kitchen during days like these! 🙂

Head over to Daphne’s Dandelions to see what other gardeners are harvesting these days.

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! 😀

What to do with all the Produce?!

July 29, 2014

What have you been doing with all of your harvests?

I prefer to eat food fresh out of the garden rather than heating up my kitchen in the summer or even filling my freezer. So I try to find a way to eat from the garden each night. This way

• we are getting the most nutrition, by eating the food the day it was picked
• I don’t have to waste all of the time and energy putting it away for later
• I save A LOT on my grocery bill

We eat peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes raw (as we did carrots, lettuce, and peas in the spring and will in the fall), along with our fruit. I do freeze extra tomatoes and berries. I plan on making our own marinara this winter when I need to heat up the kitchen so I will use the tomatoes then. I make raw jelly out of our berries (just berries and flaxseed) and we put them frozen into our oatmeal, cereal, and pancakes.

Still looking for a good Marinara recipe…anyone have a tried & true one (without sugar)?!?!

I try to have snaps, potatoes, zucchini, and corn in some form every night. What has turned out to be my favorite meal (yummy and uses the most vegetables from the garden) — Pasta Primavera!

You roast the veggies (zucchini, squash, carrots, peppers, onions), mix with pasta and cherry tomatoes. Voila!

(Before mixing with pasta and tomatoes) (After)

To stick with the ‘from the garden’ theme, this night, we had kale salad, corn on the cob, zucchini quiche, and mashed potatoes with our pasta primavera. It really put a dent in our garden consumption. yay!