Early September Garden

The corn has been good this year. And you can't see it but there are Romano beans climbing up the stalks. I just keep forgetting to pick them!  The huge sprawling thing is a squash of some sort. There are a ton of Roma tomato plants and also some cucumbers in there. Up front are two pots of peppers.

And I finally got the coop painted. Not too exciting or creative. I just used paint that was leftover from when the house was last painted. That butterfly bush is growing so huge I can't get a shot further away so you can't really see much. The doors are purple, the trim green and the rest a beige.

I didn't get shots of the rest of the garden but I've been harvesting red cabbages. I'm on my second batch of sauerkraut and also made some spiced red cabbage to can.

August Garden Update

I'm getting some tomatoes reliably. Not a lot, but enough to enjoy toast and tomatoes for breakfast, sometimes with eggs from the hens depending on how hungry I am. 

I harvested my first red cabbage today. I planted 6.  I think I'll end up with 4 heads.  One is definitely NOT doing anything so I pulled it and put in the compost today.  The one I picked I am making into a red sauerkraut with my Pickl-It jar. Recipe here from Wild Fermentation.

I'm getting green zucchini, white striped zucchini, and yellow crooknecked squash every day or so.  Sliced and sauteed, grated and sauteed, grilled, grilled and put on a squash pizza. Today I grated some and made 2 loaves of zucchini bread and froze 2 more cups of grated squash for winter zucchini bread.

I have harvested some corn and peppers as well.  I also see lots of pumpkins growing. Apparently growing them in the chicken yard was a good idea. The chickens nibbled on some leaves and pecked at one baby, but have since left them alone, although they like to wander underneath the leaves looking for bugs and such.   The green zucchini is growing back there too.

My new fig tree, planted just a month ago, has some small figs growing. And my avocado tree, planted last spring, has a single avocado growing on it!  Lemons galore, apples and Italian plums (the long narrow yellow-fleshed ones) are ready to eat as well. 

You gotta love this time of year.

Growing Celery? Make Celery Salt

If you're growing your own celery, you likely have far more leaves than you're used to, as they trim most of them off the celery you buy at the grocery store it seems.  You can dry them and then add to soups and stews and such (or chop and freeze if you'd rather). I often have a small collection of celery tops, onions skins and carrot ends that I then use to make chicken broth.

You can also make your own celery salt by drying the leaves, crumbling them and then mixing equal parts dried celery leaves with salt.  I just made some tonight, having been inspired by 101 Cookbooks blog on making your own celery salt.

Early July harvests

So far this month I've had some artichokes, red onions, radishes, cucumber, and my first tomatoes!

My first red onion

Fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden

Artichokes

June in the Garden

The weather has been odd, as it has been nearly everywhere from what I can tell.  My sugar snap peas enjoyed the cooler weather and kept producing and producing but I was worried about the tomatoes and other hot-weather crops. Finally we got some heat, which of course killed off the sugar snap peas. But I have two tomatoes that are pinkish and one pepper. I've already eaten two cucumbers, tons of radishes and lettuce (which will also likely disappear with the heat). 

My celery is growing like gangbusters but I'm not sure when to harvest it. I've also added an apricot tree and a dwarf fig tree to the chicken yard.

Roma tomatoes and corn/bean/pumpkin trilogy

my first artichoke!

Hollyhocks

potatoes

 

butterfly on the butterfly bush

A friend gave me The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn, and Fed My Family for a Year for my birthday and I'm really enjoying it.  Definitely some recipes I want to try as well as good gardening advice plus just a fun story.

Sugar Snap Peas, Radishes and Chive Blossoms

The sugar snap peas did great this year! I wish I'd planted more. Sometimes I pick them when the pods are just formed and saute in a bit of butter. Other times I let the peas grow large and we shell them and eat them at the table. (The chickens get the tougher pea pods at that point.) 

When they're in between, you can make a delicious salad with your radishes and sugar snap peas.

I'm also making some chive blossom vinegar, which should be ready in a few weeks.  Lots of chives in the garden right now with tons of flowers!  In fact, I should divide the larger clump .  I wonder if chickens would eat chives. I keep trying to find things they will not eat to plant in their yard.

April in the Garden

These are my main raised beds. The fence keeps the dogs out.  Up front, there is celery off to the left, some herbs, asparagus. In the middle are leeks and a tomato (you can barely see the cage) and some greens.


In the middle bed are, left to right, tons of arugula and lettuce and radishes, two small eggplants, chard, borage, broccoli, spinach (just sprouting), beets, and more radishes.  The back bed is filled with tomatoes and peppers and one squash on the far left that I hope will climb up that wooden trellis.  In the bed on the far left are more tomatoes and peppers, red onions, scallions hopefully (not sprouted yet and trying new from seed) and peas climbing up the far right trellis.

This is the new bed. I sheet mulched underneath it to kill the lawn hopefully.  One more pepper plant, cucumbers, 6 Roma tomatoes, and some corn just sprouted at the far end. The two wooden trellis things are only there to keep the dogs off for now.

I'm also growing some peppers in large pots.

And just for fun, a gratuitous chicken picture: