Holy Tomatoes Batman!

Yes thats right we have tomatoes. Lots and lots and lots of tomatoes. We were wondering if they were ever going to turn red with it being such a cool summer but most of them have now finally turned and we picked them Sunday afternoon. Carl also dug the rest of the potatoes and we have lots and lots of mini-pumpkins as well. Our beets are pretty much ready and we have an abundance of acorn squash that need to be picked. The garden is producing quite well at last! Tuesday Andrea and I made a 2nd batch of spaghetti sauce and a double batch of salsa and still had 3 boxes of tomatoes left. In harvesting all of our vegetables we have learned what we like and what we don't about our garden from this year. All of this will be implemented next spring when we plant again. I'm sure all the work will be much appreciated this winter when we good veggies and sauces to eat.

Garden View

Just a few shots from around the garden.

Sweet

Corn! This past week was full of picking, shucking, debugging and freezing sweet corn. Last Wednesday was also spent canning peaches and then Wednesday night Carl came out to the garden after work and he and Andrea picked all the sweet corn that was ready. Unfortunately the black picnic bugs thought our sweet corn was quite good as well and got into several ears. We did manage to salvage most of it and despite the heavy winds that all but knocked it flat earlier in the summer we did manage to get a pretty good crop. Thursday morning Andrea and I shucked all the corn between making sure 3 little boys weren't getting into things they shouldn't. Then after that long and tedious task we started cutting it off the cob and cooking large batches. At the time it seemed as if we had lots of corn but as we started freezing it in bags we discovered we really only had enough for about 13 bags of corn. We will know that we need to plant more for next year:) We planted several different varieties and we taste tested each one to see which we liked the best for next year as well. We planted Peaches and Cream-good and sweet but black bugs LOVED it. Serendipity-pretty similar to peaches and cream but easier to cut off cob and longer ears plus black bugs didn't seem to like it quite as much. Honey and Pearl-Wow super sweet maybe even a little too sweet? and Candy Corn-not as sweet and a later developer, black bugs also seemed to enjoy this variety greatly. We think we liked Serendipity the best for overall flavor, corn size and ease to freeze. After lots of cooking, cooling and bagging we were finally done around 7:00 that evening. We decided that shucking the corn is going to be a good job for the boys when they all get a little older:)

Progress

Here are some shots of the garden. Everything is looking good and getting big! Besides kohlrabi we have also been enjoying zucchini, green beans, cucumbers and a few grape tomatoes, more to come soon!

and the pigs are doing quite well also!

On Tuesday we picked a zucchini -- I knew we had some ready but had no idea this big one was out there! Time to make some bread!

Mmm-- fresh basil from the garden for our panini sandwiches. They were awesome!

In other news -- the corn is tasseling, the grape tomatoes are turning red, the peppers were fertilized and now look much better -- some even have peppers on now, the vines are taking over and there are baby pumpkins and melons starting to form, Hollie and I picked beans yesterday--more to pick this weekend (hopefully enough to can).

Getting Big

Everything in the garden is getting big, including the weeds so it received a good weeding yesterday. We got the beets thinned out as well. It is looking really good. The corn is as tall as Gabe, a little taller actually. We even have had a few peas ready but most of them will be ready soon.

The pumpkins are getting big and have flowers on them.
There are little tiny tomatoes and a few are even starting to turn orange and there are little beans on our bean plants, it is so exciting to watch everything grow so quickly. Now if we can keep our boys out of the garden and from stepping on plants we will be doing well:)

First Fruits(well vegetables)

The first veggies in the garden were picked last night. These lovely, delicious kohlrabi were the first things ready and sadly I am really the only one who is excited about it:) More for me I guess. Everything is looking good, we have little green tiny tomatoes on our tomato plants, the peas and potatoes have little blooms, the beans, onions, carrots, beets, corn, sunflowers, melons, and pumpkins are all growing well, now if the darn weeds would just stay away!

Weeding

The garden is going strong and so are the weeds.

Last night we got out in the garden for the second weeding of the summer. The first weeding was pretty light and consisted of hoeing and running a cultivator through the corn rows. This time, it got personal. We got down on hands and knees and started pulling. A few before and after shots of the evening.

There are carrots and onions and beets in there somewhere

Oh, there they are.



Alan hit the potatoes and green beans.





I hit the corn a second time and also got all the pesky stuff coming up in the rows.

Flood Insurance?

As the photos below show care should be given when planting in a known flood plain -- granted it only floods when more than 4" of rain falls in less than a 24 hour period. Of course blame global warming or my opinion just the natural progression and change of the earth's weather patterns but this flood pattern seems to be more and more prevalent.

Note: the potatoes, onions, beets and kohlrabi are safe! The peppers and tomatoes would be too if we hadn't had a late May frost!

Most of the pumpkins and squash seem OK too.

Not that you can see it in these pictures but it doesn't help that the drain intake over by the tracks sits up two feet higher than the garden and surrounding land - seriously whats the point of having an intake drain? So, all the land to the North drains into our beautiful garden and sits.

Tomato Tornado

Well not exactly a tornado but really strong winds wreaked havoc on all of our tomato plants. We were being smart( we thought) putting weed barrier down around them but apparently we did not fasten it down quite well enough as the wind picked it up and basically decapitated all of our tomato plants! Here is where our tomatoes used to be, that black draping on the fence would be our weed barrier:(We had a lot of tomato plants too. We have since purchased new tomato plants but because of minor details like a baby being born (see here) and our house being in desperate need of a paint job they have not gotten back in the ground quite yet, hopefully soon. In other garden news our sweet potatoes are not looking so hot, they appear to have been frost bitten or something so we will see if they come back or if we will be replanting those as well. The rest of the garden however is looking good. The corn is peeking through the soil The peas are up and looking good(and so are the weeds beside them)and teeny, tiny sprouts are starting to spring up in our watermelon, cantelope, and pumpkin hills. We are definately learning!

The Goose, The Gabe, and Jungle Gyms

It has been fun to have Gabe out to Andrea and Alan's to run around in a larger setting than our small back yard at home.

He gets to drive his brother and cousin around in the gator, play in the bucket of water, and just generally run around. The other night he was put in charge of a new task: goose wrangler. This is the resident goose.

This goose is one tough hombre. He is the last goose standing from his entire clan, and he is kind of a cranky old cuss who does as he pleases.

It is a shame he's beyond his prime to be sitting on the table at Christmas. Goose decided it was time to get his feet wet in the garden tromping all over the mounds of newly planted pumpkins and tramping through the newly planted corn.

So the other night Gabe was put to work wrangling the goose, helping to keep it out of the garden. Gabe thought it was hilarious to chase down the goose and soon found out how quick it could move.

The other job I put Gabe to work doing that night was container pick up as I planted the tomatoes and herbs.

I chronicled his fine work and he was soon asking for his picture to be taken, resulting in this cheese hound.

Alan started constructing our industrial strength custom tomato cages.

As Alan placed them around the tomatoes Gabe asked what they were as he was picking up discarded containers. I described them as best I could to a three going on four year old.
"Gabe," I said, "those are tomato jungle gyms."
He figured it out right quick as he asked, "are the tomatoes going to climb them?"

Newspaper Decline

Newspapers are not only doing poorly at the newsstands these days, but also in our garden. Andrea has been boning up on some serious garden reading as can be evidenced by the literature represented to the left. However, one book idea is being thrown out due to practicality. We placed newspapers as mulch over the sweet potatoes, and had planned to do so for the tomatoes.

Well, practicality won out and having more rocks than mulch resulted in going back to the drawing board and coming up with a new game plan. For the tomatoes we decided to go with landscape felt to control the inevitable weeds.

This worked much better for the scale of garden we are dealing with, even if it isn't granola. Andrea decided to replace the newspaper in the sweet potatoes with shredded paper, so do not lose heart we are still recycling.

We also covered the peppers with shredded paper while the beets and newly replaced kohlrabi received grass clippings.

Newspapers may work well for small urban planter beds like the square foot gardening some of my friends are implementing this year, but it does not work well on a large scale windswept rural garden. The landscape felt installed like a charm and should work well for the herbs and tomatoes.