We have had so much happen in our garden the last two weeks that, ironically, I’ve not had time to make an update! And the sad part is, all I’ve really been doing is mowing the lawn and picking strawberries. Although, we are 1 lb shy of 70lbs picked, washed, de-stemmed, and in the freezer as of today. So yeah, I’ve been pretty busy with that. Seems like every nap our little guy takes leaves me to try and catch up with the most recent ‘need to do’s’ in the garden/kitchen. But what a blessing to have so much fresh organic produce for free!
Top Left: BEEEEETS! We have A LOT of beets. Part of me is glad, part of me is stressed. I’m hoping to dehydrate a bunch as chips, so that’ll be good. But I can only do so much of that. I will probably just can the rest. That’s going to be a very long day… We also have a lot of carrots. Thankfully we go through a lot of carrots and I know from soups alone we will probably be through our harvest in a few months at most. Gonna need to get creative with how I use up all those beets though. Especially since we’re planning on having a second round of beets and carrots for the fall season.
Top Right: Our corn is painfully lagging behind the corn in the fields around our property, but the farmers DID get at least a 2 week head start – and I doubt we are growing the same strains/variety of corn ;) But either way, ours are coming a long nicely. Providing I don’t move any more down or knick them with the weed whacker… Note to selves: next year we should till all the ground we are using, not just the row space where the seeds go… ;)
Bottom Left: Blackcaps and raspberries are starting to make an entrance! Not sure how many of the plants are fully producing yet, but I can at least see a handful of them have berries that are beginning to ripen. Can’t wait!
Bottom Right: Just a quick shot looking out of the garden to the east of our property. In the foreground is a pot with tomatoes and then part of our strawberry patch. I still can’t believe that we’ve gotten so many berries from the space that we have. It IS a significant amount of space for strawberries, but still – I’m honestly not sure if we can use it all in one year…
Top Left: We had a lot of spinach there for a while. Granted, we still do. But it’s gotten a bit hot for spinach and the leaves are starting to burn a little bit – so not that great for salads… ;) I ended up freezing most of what we harvested because there was also lettuce to be eaten – since spinach can be used in other things like fruit shakes or soups once frozen. I’ve been harvesting the bottom leaves of the kale in hopes that I will be able to continue harvesting through the season. Most of that has been frozen so far too, but one of these days when I have the time to harvest, clean, and prepare all at the same time – I want to dehydrate some for chips!
Top Right: The top picture is of one of our three bean area’s, made with 2 posts and some chicken wire. Seemed like a great idea but of course our beans have already completely outgrown the height of the trellis. Hopefully we’ll still have success though :) Below is a picture of our soon-to-be-over lettuce (it’s getting too hot!). Those are actually egg plant starts growing up through the lettuce. They reseeded from last year and since lettuce has a cool/short season, we thought why not leave them and see how they do.
Bottom: These are our Cucurbit beds. They have quadroupled in size over the last two weeks! We already have blossoms on our zucchini plants (farthest best to the right) and the butternut squash are looking great. I couldn’t fit the peppers in the picture, but they are doing well too. Sort of slow, but we’re getting there. Behind these three beds we have our first attempt at ‘the three sisters’, which was originally used by native americans for making better use of space. It’s corn, pumpkins, and beans all planted together. The beans grow up and around the corn, and the pumpkins fill in the space around the corn. We’re excited to see how it goes!
