Tag: garden

We’ve been pretty lucky with the weather these past few weeks, with warm, dry day…though there hasn’t really been much rain, leading to concerns of brush fires getting out of control. Luckily, we got some rain last week and it wasn’t all that windy yesterday, so we ventured outside to get some yard work done in preparation for the 2024 garden.

We picked up a Milwaukee Brush Cutter attachment for the weed trimmer so that I can hopefully keep the plants behind the swing set under control, though some of the trees sprouting were more than 1″ in diameter, meaning we needed to cut those manually. There were a few trees back there whose stumps were never dug up, so every few years, we need to go through and clear them out again to make room for the flowers. Occasionally, Brooke has burned that patch, too, but we should have done that last Fall, or earlier than now so it wasn’t so green. Still, it looks a lot better back there and Calvin got in on the fun.

Speaking of which, awhile back we picked up a hand-held reciprocating saw to complement our other varieties. This one is a bit easier to handle, so Calvin was able to use it. He did a pretty good job, though I don’t think he’s quite big enough for the full-size version, let alone a chainsaw…

After the burning was done, I borrowed our neighbor’s tiller to turn over the garden plots. This is probably the easiest experience with tilling that I’ve had, and I’m not sure why. There weren’t many grasses in there, so the tiller didn’t get clogged up, and the ground was relatively soft after having some rain, so maybe that was it? Brooke noted that the burning didn’t take all that long, either, when sometimes she’s out there all day trying to coax it along. Maybe we had just enough wind to fan the flames, but I think she had all three plots burned within 2 hours of starting. That soil is still looking great!

Brooke also moved some strawberries around. She planted a few new starts, but mostly spent time moving them from outside our brick boundary to back inside, as they tend to like to spread anywhere they can. We also picked up some manure bags to spread around. We’ll probably do that with the tomatoes, too, but it’s a bit early to be putting them in…

Last, but not least, we added a new member to the garden plot party. We bought these bricks rather than making them, mostly because this section is up next to the garage, so it doesn’t have to match what’s going on in the garden completely. Here, Brooke planted some flowers mostly so she could cut them and bring them inside. Some of them worked last year, but we never added the brick border, so it ended up doing mostly nothing. This time, it should be a bit easier for me to know where the flowers are so I don’t mow over anything, and it’ll look a bit nicer, too.

Yesterday’s high was around 67 F and today barely hit 45 F, with a gnarly wind chill, too. We’re still swinging wildly between “warm and beautiful” and “cold and yucky,” though this next week looks to have plenty of sunshine, albeit with cooler temperatures. It was good to have a nice weather day fall on a Saturday where we could take advantage of it and enjoy it! Looking forward to more beautiful days to come!

It’s been a bit since I last updated this. The garden has done very well for us this year! The fruit trees had a bit of a “down year,” aside from the cherry tree (the jury is still out on the apple trees). The regular garden stuff, though, has done remarkably well.

The tomatoes started turning red in earnest at the end of July. We didn’t end up with any paste tomatoes, but we have a variety of “slicer” varieties, many that worked really well for BLTs. The cherry tomatoes produced well, too, but since Meg wasn’t really here for most of July, I wasn’t going out to pick them as often as I normally would.

We picked a few at the start, but in the last few weeks, we’ve ended up with at least three 5-gallon buckets full of them. We got our fill of BLT slicers, and the rest have been processed to be frozen for sauce over the next few months.

We’ve probably got at least 7 bags like this filled so far? We have another bucket outside full of tomatoes yet to be processed, so at this rate, we are going to run out of freezer space. I don’t think we’ve had a tomato haul like this for a few Summers, so this has been a welcome change!

The zucchini plant died a few weeks ago, but we certainly had our fill of those, too. At least 10-15 big ones, many of which we ended up giving away because, frankly, no one likes zucchini that much…

The pepper plants are doing well, but we’re only just starting to have them ready for us. They have been drooping quite a bit when we haven’t had much rain, but thankfully, while we were on vacation last week, we ended up with 3-4 inches, so that’s helped keep them going.

The anaheim peppers are doing really well! We’ve got a few plants, but many of the individual peppers are 8-10 inches long, so we ended up with quite a few that we’ll be able to process.

Honestly, no idea what these are. A lighter-colored variety that we think is going to be a hot variety? Brooke’s hoping to dehydrate chop these up to make chili powder, so we’ll have to see just how hot they are. She picked a hot bell pepper variety (I don’t think it was this one?) and it had me sweating, but that doesn’t take too much…

Still, a good year for peppers, too! Last year was a pretty good year, so I suppose we’re just on track for another solid one.

Brooke’s been picking soup beans already, though I feel like she’s usually doing that well into November. Since we got a decent amount of rain in the past few weeks, she’s had to slow down to let them dry out a bit. It’s too soon to know how this haul is, but we’re pretty consistent about soup beans, so it’ll probably be plenty…

The kale and barley are….still doing their thing. We haven’t picked kale in over a month, but it still looks pretty good? At this rate, hopefully it’ll last into the winter so we can keep on picking it. The barley is still there….and we probably won’t get much out of it…but hey, it’s growing…I guess….

Last, but not least, Brooke picked some potatoes! They’re…pretty tiny. The leafy parts died off, so Brooke dumped them out to see what we had and…they’re probably edible? She’s letting the other bag keep developing a bit in case they’re still growing. The sweet potato plants look bigger, so we’ll find out in a few weeks whether they fared better.

Probably only one or two more posts for 2023’s garden! I think it has done well for us, but school starts Tuesday, so our processing and weeding is going to slow down even further than it already has.

The garden’s in full-swing! First, I should note that we’re in relatively severe drought conditions here in Missouri, though we got a little rain over the past few days. There are storm chances still this week, but a lot of it is “pop up” kinds of systems, rather than good, sustained, rains. Thus, I’ve been watering the garden every few days. I mowed today, but honestly, I can only see where I’ve mowed near the garden, as that’s the only grass actually growing…

First, we’ve got some zucchini! This is the biggest one, though there are others coming on. We’ll give this one a few days, but we’re well on our way to getting some of these to dehydrate and chop up for smoothies later this year. Maybe we’ll have one fried zucchini (as that’s usually enough), but the kids aren’t huge fans and we’d probably just end up wasting it.

The tomatoes are doing well! We’ve got one (or two?) cherry tomato plant, so those are just now starting to turn, but a lot of the big “slicer” plants are doing well. Brooke’s tied them up a few times so far, so with watering help, they’re still growing pretty well.

Given how much sun we’ve been getting, I wouldn’t be surprised if these start turning within a few weeks! There are a lot of big-ish ones like this on the various plants, but this was probably the highest concentration of them.

And some cute cherry tomatoes! Meg’s going to be gone for a lot of July, so she isn’t going to get to eat a lot of these, I’m afraid, but hey, it’ll save us a few trips to Aldi for them…

The pepper plants…well….look like our typical pepper plants. Last year’s crop did shockingly well, so perhaps I’m a bit spoiled, but I was hoping for a bit better out of them. It’s still a little early, I guess, but the plants are still relatively small and I haven’t seen many (any?) flowers on them. Perhaps it’s because they’re mostly under the tree so they get more shade, or maybe it’s the lack of rain…but either way, they’re still pretty tiny.

The beans are doing alright, though! Brooke had to re-plant a few seeds to fill in some gaps. She picked an ice cream bucket of them today, so I think we’re bouncing back after a somewhat “down year” in 2022!

The leafy greens, we’ve mostly let go, at this point. I think Brooke’s going to pick some and dehydrate them for smoothies this Fall, so it won’t all go to waste. Strangely, they haven’t really gone to seed all that much, so I think they’re still mostly growing? Probably about time to dig up those carrots and see if anything’s actually down there, too….

And last, but not least, the potato bags. The sweet potatoes are looking pretty good (the middle, green one). The regular potatoes, though, those leaves just don’t look all that good to me, so I’m not sure how those are going. The onions look alright, too, so hopefully all is not lost from this little experiment.

The peaches are starting to turn, but I didn’t take a picture because they’re sooooo little due to lack of rain. We also haven’t seen japanese beetles this year, either, but maybe that’s because of the lack of rain and lack of peaches to feed on. Blessing in disguise, perhaps? Hopefully we end up getting something!

On second thought, I never posted pictures of cherries, so here goes!

We were actually in town during the main cherry haul, so we actually got a pretty decent amount! Plenty for Calvin to go out and eat a handful, and also enough for a cherry pie, so that worked out well! Our strawberries also did pretty well, though they’re getting smaller with each year, so it’s probably about time to re-plant some new ones!

The garden has really only just started, but since I took the time to weed the paver blocks around each plot yesterday, I figured now was a good time to take a few pictures!

We’ve had plenty of sunshine for the past few weeks, but rain has been very, very limited. We had a bit over 1.5″ a few weeks ago, spread over a few days, but other than that, I’ve had to supplement with the sprinkler a few times already in order to move things along.

The tomatoes are looking good, at least! A family friend started a lot of seeds over the winter and more of them “took” than he was planning for, so we inherited 14 plants, most of which are doing pretty well. Brooke also put zucchini in the mounds on front-left, but while a few of those plants are up, others were decimated by squirrels, so she may end up re-planting a few. The pepper plants are in the back-left, and only one of those is doing anything. Brooke picked up a few more plants yesterday that she’ll plug in soon.

The first plot that was planted included a few varieties of kale, some spinach, and some carrots, the latter of which was also spread around by squirrels (ug…). The kale and spinach are all doing well, though, and Brooke already processed and dehydrated some of it. We should get another month out of them, likely, before it gets too hot.

The bean plans are moving right along, but feel a bit slower to get going than I was expecting, especially the “soup beans” (furthest back). Our green bean haul was smaller than usual last year, so hopefully we recover a bit this time around. It’s a bit early to say, though, how this year is going to go – it’s only May!

The new thing Brooke is trying this year is these “potato bags.” I think she saw this idea on social media, or a targeted ad, or something….but the thought is that potatoes are annoying to have to dig up, so why not plant them in something that can be dumped out, instead? She’s got regular potatoes in the right hand bags, then onions in the left hand ones. The middle (green) one is where the sweet potatoes are going to go once she gets them planted.

When Brooke planted these, she put some straw in, as well as some compost, and some topsoil. It took a bit to get the mix the way she wanted it, but given how the plants are growing, it looks like she got it right!

A month ago, I wasn’t sure how the strawberries were going to do this year. We’ve had the plants for a few years now, and we haven’t really done anything to reinvigorate the plot, aside from directing “runners” back into the plot as best as we can. Well….

….I guess it’s going fine? We’ve probably picked two ice cream buckets-worth (you know, a universal, agreed-upon unit of produce measurement) of berries over the past few weeks. In years’ past, we haven’t always been here in early June, due to vacation/travel, but this time, we should be able to get a good sense of how much we’re actually getting. The berries are great, of course, and they went very well on angel food cake yesterday!

The next big thing will be cherries, though! Taking a page off the strawberries, again, we aren’t always here in early June, so we don’t always get the full harvest of cherries before the birds get them (though we don’t have as much of a problem with birds as my parents did years ago on our cherry tree). Again, like the strawberries, I don’t think I’m seeing as many cherries on there as I have in years past, but maybe I’ll be surprised!

Onward into June! We’re just getting started!

This season has been sooooooo dry, so in some ways we’ve been ahead in getting some gardening and landscaping done, but in other ways, we’re a bit behind. I finally tilled up a few garden plots today because Brooke was only able to burn one of the other plots a few weeks ago, maybe a month later than she normally would. It’s been so windy that it’s been difficult to pick a good day to clear brush from the Fall and Winter.

Part of what slowed us down was the rye Brooke planted in the western garden plot. She planted it as a cover crop last Fall and, by the time I got back from Albuquerque, it was at least 8 in. tall, so on Good Friday, I went and turned it over manually. The tiller wasn’t going to go through all the rye, so we had two options: either mow over it, then turn it over; or turn it over with the grass and wait for it to die off.

Well, it took 3 weeks for it to dry up to the point where I thought the tiller might work, and thankfully, it worked out to “fluff up” the soil relatively well.

Brooke seems to think she’ll be able to plant beans there sometime this week or next weekend, so as long as it doesn’t harden up, it should be good to go. The bigger plot is going to house tomatoes and peppers, so even though the tiller didn’t seem to turn it as well, planting tomatoes will require a shovel anyway, so it’s probably fine.

We’ll have to see how the western plot ends up toward the end of Summer. Not sure the rye cover crop was “worth it,” but perhaps I’ll be surprised.

In the northern plot, Brooke planted spinach, kale (seen in a tiny row above), and carrots. The kale is up, but only after Brooke started watering it. Cats have been out there digging in the dirt, so some of her seeds surely got dispersed to where they shouldn’t be. She planted these seeds about 3 weeks ago, so she wasn’t entirely sure they were going to take at all, but apparently it was the abject lack of rain, because watering the plot twice was enough to get them to finally sprout. We’ll have to keep watering them this week, as the forecast still only shows the occasional 40% chance of precipitation once or twice this coming week.

Brooke put some lettuce in the planter near our garden patio. It stays shaded nearly all Summer, so as long as we keep it watered, we should be able to keep fresh lettuce alive for a good portion of the Summer.

Last, but not least, we still have some buds in our strawberry patch. It doesn’t look as good as I’d like, but perhaps it still has some growing to do? Brooke tried “fluffing” it up a few weeks ago, pulling some of the straw off, but it still seems like we need to add some plants in there. We’ve had a few frosts this past week, and it appears that the flowers have survived well enough. We had plenty of buds on the pear, apple, and peach trees, so I think they largely avoided frost damage. At least this year, we’ll be here in early June, so we may get to see the strawberries and cherries come to fruition (see what I did there?).

Normally, this time of year, the garden would be running a bit low on productivity, but this year, it sure seems like we’ve got a long(ish) way to go! It sure looks good, too, despite the notable lack of rain this Summer. I haven’t had to water for a few weeks, and the temperatures have been a bit milder recently.

The sweet potatoes are growing well (not really pictured, but just off to the right of this image), but the main story is the bottle gourds…which are apparently a thing?? Brooke picked up these seeds mostly on a whim and they’ve taken over the garden, and there are quite a few gourds growing (three in the image above – we’ve got almost 10, maybe?). I’m still not sure what, exactly, we’re going to do with them. I suppose we could carve one up like a pumpkin for Halloween?

In this shot, we’re still seeing a lot of bottle gourd plant matter (all those big leaves), but we’ve also got some zinnias! It sure took them a long time to get going this year, but Brooke’s had enough to pick here and there to bring into the house. I think she’s still planning on starting a new flower plot next year, so maybe the zinnias will move out there, but for now, randomly interspersed among the gourd plants, we’re still getting something out of them.

The sorghum are still doing their thing, of course. The tassels are mostly brown at the top, but it looks like they have grown secondary stalks, which is something we didn’t expect. The secondary ones are still green, so it may take a bit before we can do anything about them. When Brooke’s ready, we’ll use her new electric wood chipper to process them and see if we can get more than a teaspoon of molasses.

The beans are still coming along, too (pictured a few shots below). Brooke’s working on soup beans, and that will probably continue for the rest of the month. She ended up picking some green beans yesterday, despite the fact that we’d normally be done with them a month ago. She’s canned 9 pints of green beans so far, and she likely got enough for another 3 or 4 more. It wasn’t looking good earlier in the Summer, and we definitely don’t have as many beans as we normally would, but at least we’re recovering a bit compared to previous years!

The tomatoes needed some TLC, so last week, we removed as much of the greenery as we could while still leaving the green tomatoes on. We finally got a few “slicers” to ripen, but we still don’t have as good a haul of those as we have in the past few years. On the other hand, we’ve got a ton of romas this year, so we should be in good shape in the tomato sauce department.

The bell peppers, though…they’re a whole other thing. We haven’t had this good a pepper year since we lived in Iowa, and these last few Summers, I’ve questioned whether it’s even worth planting them because we get only a few peppers, sometimes one or two per plant. Well this year, we’ve got buckets full of them, to the point where the plants are so overloaded that they’re falling over (as seen above).

Those are some nice looking peppers, right?? And we’ve got multiple fridge crispers with more in them. And we’ve been giving peppers away because we’ve got so many. It’s. Nuts.

We’ve still got quite a few romas on the vine, as well as cherry tomatoes, but we’re about out of “big beef”-style ‘maters, sadly. Those are the ones I’d rather have, of course, but so long as we’re getting a lot of the others (and we are), it isn’t a total loss.

The peach haul this year was very disappointing, but the apple trees are actually doing pretty well! We won’t have enough to get a ton of cider out of them from our cider press, but they’ll definitely supplement whatever other apples we get from Peter’s. We’ve also picked some pears, but we aren’t sure they’re quite ready yet. Some are rotting on the tree, while the ones we preemptively pick don’t seem to be ripe. We’ll just keep trying, I suppose!

Last, but not least, the tobacco plant! It’s gigantic, and the flowers at the top are kinda pretty! The leaves started to turn yellow toward the bottom, suggesting that they were ready to be picked.

The leaves have been at a good size for weeks now, but only recently did we think it was time to try and dry a few. Not that we know what we’re doing, but you can see how the edges of the leaves are lightening up relative to the rest of the green centers.

And so, we’ve got some hanging up in the garage attic! It will be plenty warm up there, and hopefully humid enough to dry the leaves without overdrying (which is a concern). The whole point of the leaves are for them to produce smoke when lit, which means they need to be at least somewhat moist. Whether this particular setup actually ends up being the right one or not remains to be seen.

There’s probably a month left before we shut it all down for 2022! We’ve gotten plenty of produce this year, despite the fact that the proportions of fruits and veggies were different than we usually get. It keeps things interesting from year to year, I suppose!