It was a rainy weekend

" Too wet to go out and too cold to play ball. So we sat in the house and did nothing at all..."

It was really wet all week here but not so cold. On Saturday we made it into Atlanta for a fun day at the zoo.

 It was a perfect day for an outing and the family had a wonderful time. The weather couldn't have been better. It was kind of overcast and not too warm.

There was a petting zoo and a wonderful little playground full of kids for the boys to play with. The carousel was a hit as was the train around the little train around the park. And of course they enjoyed seeing all the wonderful animals that the zoo had to show us. From tiny little parakeets to giant tortoises and all the primates and meerkats and reptiles one could hope to see in a day.

Sunday there was more rain, but not before we were able to harvest our carrots. As sad as the germination rate in the carrot patch was, we were still able to harvest a couple of pounds of carrots. I am hopeful that the fall planting will be even better.

This week there has been a lot of growing in the garden. The zucchini have started coming in; I have picked three already. The basil  is finally ready to start picking, although it will be another week or so before there will be enough basil for fresh pesto.
The first round of cilantro has been picked. I will be interested to see how many rounds of cilantro I will be able to pick before it bolts. The tomatoes are looking okay, not great though. The cherries are doing fine and the beefsteaks are not too bad off. There has been some dying off of the leaves but I don't expect it to be a problem. I believe some die off is normal. The romas are the ones I worry about. I have completely lost one plant and at least two more are looking like they might not survive. Also Something seems to be killing my yellow squash. They have all shriveled up and died. It almost looks like blossom end rot but not black like I am used to seeing.  I will certainly look into it to see what may be the problem.
Over the weekend I was able to start some endive seeds and I hope to start some more squash seeds to replace any that may die off. I have in the past lost all of my squash plants about midway through the season to what I believe is the squash vine borer. This year I hope to be prepared for that. Typically squash plants do not fair that well when transplanted from seedlings but I don't know what options I have at this point. Ideally I would have enough space in the garden to direct seed some new squashes in an existing bed, but space being somewhat limited I want to have some plants ready to go into the existing spots if they are needed.

 I was able to weed the okra and watermelon bed over the weekend, but I didn't bother with the lettuce. Since the lettuce has started to bolt I will just let it go to seed and see if I can get any seeds for next year out of them.

 My grapevines are really exploding. This is a giant tangled mess; a result I am sure of the lack of winter pruning. I will definitely take care and prune this winter.

Grapes

 This is Oliver's patch of garden. He was a little late in planting but everything sprouted almost instantly. There are zinnias and marigolds that he started in class and at the seed swap respectively. Bean stalks are at the top and watermelon to the right. The beans are butter-beans.

 The First bloom of my zinnia patch is starting to open up. I do enjoy fresh cut flowers.

 the cucumbers are taking their sweet time getting going. I have never grown cucumbers before so this may very well  be completely normal.

 I have been very pleased with the growth of the potato patch in the foreground. they are just about done with their growing and soon I will be able to harvest them. The sunflower patch in the back has gotten about as tall as I am but there are still no blooms on it. I thought for sure this would be the week that they would have begun to appear. Oh-well maybe next week.

 My tomatoes are coming along nicely. The beefsteak tomatoes are needing to be tied up up the fencing again. I think next year I will try to make tomato cages for these guys as well. All the other tomatoes are growing up without as much fuss as these guys.

 Here are my roma tomatoes. You can see the tomato plant that I lost is in the first tomato cage. I am guessing it was some kind of fungal blight or something which means that this bed will be off limits for tomato plants for a few years.

 The peppers here are not growing too quickly. I am not sure if I planted all sweet peppers or if there are some poblano peppers in there as well. I am hopeful that there are both kinds of peppers in there.

The Mayor

 The green beans are ready to be picked. I was able to pick enough over the weekend for a nice side of sauteed green beans. There are sweet pie pumpkins sharing the bed with the green beans and I am sure that they will enjoy the space once the green beans are gone.

Roma Tomatoes

I am so glad the basil is almost ready. I hope to have tons of pesto by the end of the season. It has always been my families favorite of all the garden goodies. In the background you can see what looks like a bean tee-pee but is in fact a support for the birdhouse gourd plants that I am trying to grow this year. I received the seeds from the seed swap earlier this year.

Lettuce Bolting

 Alfie just adores the chickens and never misses out on the chance to toss them a little food or collect the eggs.

 The hops are doing great. I divided them this year and being new at this I wasn't sure if they would survive. I was quite pleased that not only did these plants thrive, but the plants that I divided out also did very well.

Beefsteak Tomatoes

I harvested the majority of the buttercrunch lettuce and the radishes and went to the local farmers market. I was nervous about selling the produce as I do not use any chemicals or insecticides and am worried that people will judge me if they find slugs or spiders or whatever crawling thing in the head of lettuce I sell them. I warned them that there were no pesticides of any kind used and to wash the lettuce REALLY well before serving it. I sold 10 heads of lettuce, a half dozen bunches of radishes, and a couple bunches of mint sprigs. I brought in $33 and had to give 10% to the market. I am quite pleased with my first attempt at selling at the market.
A few things I will try to do better for next time:

• A Sweet Basil Farm sign so people will know who I am.
• A stack of recipe cards highlighting the foods I am trying to sell. 
• Little signs labeling the produce and possibly prices.
• Fancy produce trays for displaying my wares.

Unfortunately I don't think I will have anything to sell next week but the following week I may have sunflowers, squashes, kale, and maybe potatoes.

Tomato Cages and Other Garden Happenings

I was not able to get much done in the past couple weeks. I had a busy week at work combined with excessive rains that left me longing to get out in the garden. Last Sunday the rain stopped and the sun peaked through the clouds for a couple hours, just long enough for me to get  the rest of the tomato cages built.

A pleasant benefit to all the rain was that the ground was saturated enough for me to easily dig out the T-posts from the old goat fencing. I thought I was going to have to buy a $50 T-post puller to get them out of the ground without ruining them.

I used some of the posts to put up this trellis for the beefsteak tomatoes. I am going to try and train these to grow up by picking the side shoots and suckers. Hopefully this will result in bigger and better, though fewer, tomatoes.

The basil bed was successfully weeded. The germination rate on these were okay. I was hoping for better, but at least they came up at a decent spacing and coverage. Ideally they would have come up thicker and more closely spaced  so that I could use the thinnings in the kitchen. I am going to try and start these indoors from now on. Not only will that result in fresh basil sooner, but it will also allow me to control the spacing.

In this bed I have the green beans. They are a bush style which I have never grown before so I am anxious to  see how well they produce. I like the looks of a bean trellis so I may still put in some climbing beans. Next to the beans on the left side of the bed I planted sugar pie pumpkins because I love pumpkin pie. 

I am so pleased with how the potatoes have thrived here. This is my second year growing potatoes and it turns out that it is one of my favorite crops to grow. I will devote more space to the potato next year. I may even try a fall planting this year.

Kale in the foreground, radishes in the middle and carrots in the background. I will be harvesting the first of the kale probably this weekend. I have harvested close to a pound of radishes so far in just two pickings. 

The boys.

Alfie the elf.

Soccer Fun and a Wet Rainy Weekend

Big Brother Ollie is playing soccer. This is his first foray into organized sports. He is having a lot of fun. I am trying to not push him too hard and just remember that he is 6 and has never played soccer before.

It is a lot of fun just watching him interact with his peers as that is not something we have been able to see him do before; not with a group so large. I am glad to see that he is generally well liked by everyone and is really enjoying being a part of the team.

In the garden

 The weather has been wet all weekend so  there was not much going on in the garden. Everything is just growing more and teasing us with hints of harvests to come.

The Buttercrunch lettuce is almost ready to start being picked. I do believe that I will pick the first of the heads this week sometime. If not this week then definitely this weekend.

The squash plants are starting to get big with a few true leaves per plant. I hope they do well this year. We have had a problem with some kind of bug eating the plant by about half way through the growing season so this year I will be extra vigilant in trying to keep the bugs out of my squash bed.

The Moon and Stars watermelon are sprouting. Hopefully I will get more than a few good watermelons from this.

The grapevines are growing nicely and I do believe that there are a few grape clusters starting to form on some of the shoots. I am curious to see how these do as I did not do any winter time pruning of these. I will do some spring and summer training of the vines and next early spring I will plan on doing  some major pruning and shaping of the vines.

I have two apple trees that I have to figure out how to prune. I planted them last spring and they are thriving.

And finally there are some flowers blooming in the yard that I have had nothing to do with. Those pretty Irises were planted before we ever moved in and the hydrangeas here are also quite lovely.

I plan on digging up the irises and moving them to a better spot. 

What Is Coming Up

 The lettuce here  is Buttercrunch. It is a head lettuce and is coming in nicely.  Next to the lettuce, running down the middle of the bed is a row of Clemson Spineless Okra. Running up the bed, opposite the lettuce, is a split row. Up to the little stick marker is planted Moon and Stars Watermelon, and from the stick on I have planted snapdragons. You can see one of the three blueberry bushes planted last year next to the garden cart. The grapes are visible on the trellis fence at the end of the lettuce row

 Joy of joys the Sweet Basil is sprouting. I will do some weeding in this bed come the weekend. Sweet basil was the first plant I tried growing almost 10 years ago now. It has been a treat every year since. Fresh basil is amazing and pesto pizza is our favorite way to enjoy it.

The sunflowers have germinated at a decent rate. only a couple of bare spots. I did not get the same results with many of the other crops I direct seeded. The carrots had the saddest showing with only about 2 dozen carrots coming up in a 4'x6' bed. I should have had 5 times that amount. From now on I will have to plan on sowing a much thicker line of seeds. As sad as it is to thin the row, it is much sadder to see all the wasted space and lost potential.

It is not too big of a garden this year, but it should give me an idea as to how much garden I can tend so that next year I will be able to expand accordingly.