Another Garden Update!

I finally got some recent garden pictures, and wanted to make sure I posted them before they weren't so recent anymore!

The squash and pumpkins have been having a pretty good year.  The powdery mildew is taking over now, but frost isn't too far away so I'm not too concerned.  

So excited to pick my big carving pumpkins tomorrow!

I harvested all of the carrots over the weekend, and we got a good amount.  Raised rows is definitely the way to go with carrots, they are huge!

The cucumbers are shot, and have been for awhile.  I think they got cucumber mosaic virus...

The tomatoes are doing pretty well.  I've been proactively applying a copper fungicide to keep them healthy, and it seems to be working somewhat.  They're still diseased, but going strong.  We've harvested a ton of tomatoes, too!  (Each picture shows a different variety of tomato.)

Granadiero.

Legend.

Old Brooks.

Iron Lady.

Defiant.

Oregon Spring.

Yellow Perfection.

Matt's Wild Cherry.

I finally ripped out the broccoli and made two new root vegetable rows.  I'll probably cover them with something once it starts to frost, but root veggies can handle a bit of cold.  I planted radishes, spinach, beets, and carrots.

And no garden update post is complete without a picture of the harvest!  This was just one day.  We now have twice as many tomatoes and at least 10x as many potatoes!  And I still need to dig the rest of the potatoes!

Garden Update

I finally got around to taking pictures of the garden, and now that I uploaded them I realize how old they are!  

These are the 4 squash and pumpkin mounds.  I was trying out a few different trellises for the squash, but I think they are too much trouble.  The squash are producing wonderfully, but are now coming down with a fungus.

The flower edging has turned out quite well.  Needs to be weeded a bit, but flowered nicely.

This is one of the root vegetable mixed rows.  Onions at the top, radishes at the bottom.  There are now carrots and beets growing in between.

The cucumbers started out very strong, producing 20-30 every few days.  Unfortunately they came down with mildew and are all but dead now.

The tomatoes still appear to be doing well.  There is a bit of fungus, and for some reason they've gotten blossom end rot.  I just ordered some calcium, hopefully that will help.

This is the first of the mixed root vegetable rows.  It has now been completely picked, even the carrots turned out well.

The broccoli produced well enough, but got eaten pretty quick by something (I suspect groundhogs again).

Last but not least, the potatoes.  They are mostly dead on top now, and my husband has harvested a few plants already.

I'll take more updated pics after the state fair!

Garden 2015!

It is really disappointing how little "free" time I have at home now that I'm working full time.  So much less time for the fun outdoor stuff like gardening, and even less time to blog about it!  But I finally managed to take some pictures of my expanded garden, and thought I would share them.

The garden is at least twice as big as it was last year.  It was supposed to be bigger, but 2 broken rototillers later my husband gave up and I settled for what was done.  The plants are the same as last year though, just more of most of them!

These are the "hills" of squash and pumpkin.  I'm trying out a few different trellising methods, we'll see which one wins in the end.  Still battling the dreaded cucumber beetle, just like last year!

I finally got my permanent flower edges planted.  Hopefully I remember to mark them at the end of the growing season so that they don't get tilled under next year!

This is the second planting of spinach, onions, beets, carrots, radishes, and lettuce.  I have gotten a TON of radishes out of this wide row, and picked a good amount of lettuce and spinach today.  

This is the row of cucumbers.  I hid them under a floating row cover for several weeks after planting, but they started to bloom so I freed them.  Darn cucumber beetles still found them!

Can't forget the tomatoes!  I planted almost twice as many as last year (not by choice!), so I hope they do well.  I did get some fungicide to hopefully thwart the blight.

My first planting of onions, spinach, beets, carrots, radishes, and lettuce.  I've picked almost all of the spinach, lettuce, and radishes, and most of the beets.  I noticed today that something is eating the carrot tops, but hopefully they'll still live.

Good old broccoli, if only everything were this easy to grow!  I've already harvested 3 big heads so far this week.

And last but not least, the potatoes.  I definitely planted the rows too close together, and I'm worried they aren't hilled enough.  But the plants look gorgeous!

Busy Spring!

I'll warn you, the blog is going to be sparse for awhile.  I started a full-time job last fall, so my blogging time is greatly diminished.  While I'm still doing lots of things around the farm, I just can't seem to remember to take pictures and upload them!

Anyway, here's a bit of what's been going on the past month or so.  Some of this will get expanded on in the future, so stay tuned!

My first spring project was cleaning and organizing the "garden shed".  It has been a mess since I moved in, and I finally had enough!  This is what I started with...

This is as far as I got the first day...hanging all the tools and wire edging/trellises.  The rest is done now, just need to get pictures to prove it!

The biggest spring project was cleaning up outside the barn.  Usually over the winter I try my hardest to take the manure down to the garden compost pile every time I clean, but after we got 2' of snow overnight it became impossible!  And that 2' never melted until March, just grew and grew!  So I resorted to dumping the manure outside the barn, and had a huge mess to clean up!  I used the tractor for awhile, but once I realized it was making huge ruts in the pasture I resorted to a wheel barrow.

This is just a fraction of what I started with!  Once again, I need to get "after" pictures now that it is clean!

And last but not least, the garden.  My husband tilled it a couple weeks ago, and parts of it look great!

Other parts don't look so great (they didn't get tilled deep enough to kill the sod underneath).

There is lots of lovely llama poop mixed in for fertilizer though!

The part that was planted last year really looks nice.  A few more years of sorting out rocks and we'll have amazing soil!

I built a cool little tool for seeding the root vegetables...a dibble!

It has nails in the bottom at various intervals.

When pressed into the soil, the nails leave depressions in which to plant the seeds.

After spreading the seeds I covered the area with a sprinkling of soil and watered well.  The radishes are already coming up!

The end of my first day in the garden...3 rows of potatoes planted (4 varieties), a raised row ready for broccoli (a few plants are now planted), and another raised row half-planted with root vegetables (onions, carrots, radishes, beets) and leafy vegetables (spinach and lettuce).  The other half will be planted in a few weeks.

Winter Garden Prep

Obviously I haven't been doing any gardening recently, but I have been preparing for next year!

Despite previous work by my in-laws, the soil in the garden is terrible!  Full of clay and rocks.  Last year we added quite a bit of compost before tilling, and I wanted to add a bunch more this winter.

I also had some moldy hay that I decided to lay down.

Instead of dumping the llama poop in one compost pile all winter and then moving it in the spring, I've decided just to dump the poop on top of the garden all winter!

I also hauled a huge load of leaves from the front yard to a new garden spot.  Leaves break down into great compost!

I also ordered a bunch of seeds, some compostable pots, and a floating row cover for next year!  Now I just need a few soaker hoses and I'm set for spring!

End of the Garden

Well unfortunately I think this week is going to be the end of the garden...  The weather has turned quite chilly, and there is even the forecast of frost next week!  And of course I'm going to be out of town, so I don't think I'll be able to get any of the plants protected...

I thought I'd give a re-cap on how things grew.

First up are the cucumbers.  I guess it was a bad year for cucumbers all around, so I don't feel terrible about their bad production.

The "tender green" cucumbers did terrible!  I planted 3 plants, and 2 died within a few weeks.  The one remaining plant hardly gave any fruit.  Definitely won't plant it next year!

Next up is the "market more" cucumber.  It did better, but still not great.  Production was pretty good though.

The "national pickling" cucumber was the best overall.  Biggest plants and best production.

And last but not least, the "straight 8" cucumber.  Decent production but small plants.

Next were the squash.  I planted 3 plants of each type, and honestly they did about the same.  The first one was "success PM yellow straight neck".  Overall these plants did better.

The other type was "yellow crookneck".  I eventually lost one of these plants, and another never seems to bear fruit, but the last one produces a ton!  Surprisingly there are still tons of new baby squash fruits on the plants, hopefully they will have time to mature.

Now to the big guns...the tomatoes!  First up is the "yellow perfection".  These are heirlooms, but they probably performed best in terms of production.  They did eventually get late blight, but they are still going strong.

The pathetic looking plants on the right are "homestead" tomatoes, another heirloom.  Huge fruits, but they did terrible.  Definitely won't be planting them again.

The huge success was "matt's wild cherry" tomato.  They may have contracted one of the wilt diseases, but the plants are huge and produce quite a bit.

And the biggest disappointment, "iron lady" tomatoes.  They were supposed to be blight resistant, but they got it anyway.  And they plants were tiny.  They have produced a surprising amount of fruit, but nothing compared to some of the others.

My pepper plants were a joke...I've gotten a few decent-sized fruits, but all have holes from insects.  Not sure if I'll bother next year.

And last but not least...the last stuff to start in the garden!  I think I may have pushed the envelope a bit with these, especially considering the recent cold snap, but I started another batch of radishes, carrots, and beets a few weeks ago.  They're coming in nicely.  I also planted some lettuce and spinach a couple days ago...wonder if they'll grow at all!