TY VeggiePatch

Lots of Rain = Big Harvests

2016-05-31T12:29:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

The week we were gone on a family vacation to OBX, it rained every day in Charlotte and the temps were quite cool. We returned to an abundance of greens in the garden. I harvested:

enough collards for 5 days worth of smoothies,
enough lettuce for 4 days of big salads for lunch,
enough greens for 5 nights worth of dinners (main meals, not side dishes),

and STILL did not make a dent in what was available.

More rain happened then we headed to McClellanville, SC for a long Memorial Day weekend and came back to even MORE abundance.

Today I harvest what you see below which includes collards, (the last of the) lettuce, mint, Swiss Chard, carrots, raspberries, snow peas, purple cabbage, and dill.

This will be enough for 5 days of smoothies, 4 days of salads, and 3 nights of main-dish dinners.

Spring 2016 Update

2016-04-24T10:11:00.002-04:00

written by Yvonne

Things are finally coming up. Seems like it takes twice as long as the package says for seeds to sprout, but for the most part, everything eventually does come up.

Me taking a picture of Tom taking a picture of the garden.

The first blackberry flower of the season. This photo makes the flower look huge, but it's actually quite small. I didn't even see it but on closer inspection, Tom saw it and snagged a shot.

The strawberries have been flowering for many weeks now but the flowers are hard to spot. We didn't tend these at all during the winter and they came through just fine. This is the main strawberry patch. There are two others in large pots.

When you pull back all that green, there are many of small flowers; some have started to drop their leaves and are forming the berries.

Very successful cabbage. Still probably need to thin these out because once they get big, I don't know if there will be enough space for all of them to mature.

Collards doing GREAT.

This is Swill Chard which was planted several weeks after the collards.

The lettuce has come on full force. It's actually bigger than this now and we've even begun eating from it. Adding arugula to our lunch salad is such a treat!

(Ants view of the lettuce.)

The peas haven't taken off like I'd hoped, but this one is coming along OK.

To the left is a patch of carrots and the larger plant on the right is beans.

Kale.

Spinach is WAY disappointing. I planted two full packs of seeds in the area and this is all that's come up.

This is oregano that came back after winter. I'll be drying some more soon because we just ran out.

This is thyme that also came back after the winter. I planted parsley and cilantro a few weeks ago but no signs of it yet. Most herbs don't want to come out until it's consistently super hot weather. We've been having a beautiful cool spring so I'm not giving up on these seeds just yet.

An overview of the Spring garden after a good rain.

2016-03-15T08:17:00.001-04:00

written by Yvonne

Just about all of the spring garden has been planted. Cabbage and carrots went down on 3/6 and this past Sunday (3/11) the collards, spinach, kale and lettuce were planted. I planned for a really big spinach patch thinking I had a lot of spinach seed. When I pulled the seeds out, I only found two kinds so I planted what I had. Later when I went to put some other seeds back, I found three more varieties of spinach! Well, those will have to wait for late summer I guess. We got two good rains since Saturday so hopefully some sprouts will start to appear soon.

2016 - Smaller and More Manageable

2016-02-12T13:30:00.004-05:00

written by Yvonne

By late Spring of last year, T and I became a little overworked and a lot burnt out. Too much of... well, too much everything: bees, garden, yard work, house upkeep, commitments, etc. We took time off from the garden and did not plant anything for Fall and Winter. This turned out to be a great decision as it gave us time to re-think how best to manage our time as it relates to the garden.

The first change we are implementing is that I won't be writing nearly as many blog posts. Originally I was going to give this up altogether, but we use the blog for reference purposes, and folks do enjoy reading about our successes and failures. So instead of writing something every week, it will likely be more like once a month. (I mean really - how many pictures of indecipherable, tiny green seedlings does one need to write about?)

The second change is that I will be the primary manager of the garden. This should allow Tom more time for his bees and will allow me to mange the garden around my schedule.

The last change is that I will plant only two beds at any given time and the other two beds will fallow. This should allow for easier management and not be so time consuming.

Although the weather is still very cold, the bright sunny day and 0% change of rain/snow allowed us to spend a few hours on Sunday doing some prep work. Tom tilled beds 3 and 4...

and we refilled the boxes with a load of dirt.

Beds 3 and 4 are now ready for planting and I will spend time this weekend picking out and ordering seeds from the Sow True seed catalog.

Of course, everyone was eager to help.

Not too hard to tell which dog likes her paws firmly on the ground and which one is more up for adventure.

Yep... Still Green

2015-04-26T14:41:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

Honey and Olive wanted to make sure everyone knows how much they help in all of our gardening endeavors. They did a good job of making sure these bales of straw didn't blow away.

And yes, you guessed it. We are still (happily) eating spinach and lettuce! Baskets full!

And there is still plenty more growing! Actually, after harvesting a good amount of the spinach pictured here, we started pulling up the plants because they've begun to bolt.

This is the other end of the lettuce/spinach bed. Tom tilled it and planted (from left to right) snap peas, Provider bush beans, Maxibell bush beans. In the background you can see new rows of spinach coming up in bed #3.

The collards, Swiss chard and kale are just about ready to eat. Next weekend I'll likely make something with the Swiss chard. Upon further inspection, Tom determined that the large plant in the right foreground is a couple of turnips, not collards. Still good eatin' either way.

Only a few of the peas have come up so far (center).

This volunteer cucumber showed up out of nowhere. It's a little early for cucumbers but if it wants to come up now, fine by us.

Still plucking off the strawberry flowers and it seems to be working because the plants are really growing nicely.

We are a behind in starting summer seeds. We should have started melons, squash, peppers and tomatoes a few weeks ago, but there are only so many hours in a weekend. Tom filled up the pots I made with dirt and tomorrow I'll get some squash, melons, and pumpkin seed started.

Tom also tilled the garden annex area. Ya know, I think we just like having this as potential so we get it ready every year and think we're going to find just the right thing to make it work. Yes, a few squashes materialized last year, but for the most part, it's been a dud. Well NO MORE! Boy do we have plans for it now! You may recall we purchased rosemary and two kinds of mint plants in early Spring. This is where they are going to reside and we have high hopes they will 'take' since both are aggressive and hearty. We've managed to keep the plants alive through some really cold weather. Now that the bed is ready, they'll get planted tomorrow. THEN, we're going to take chicken wire previously used for compost bins and hang it on the outside of the carport. We'll secure it down at the bottom of this of brick wall with stakes. Then we'll transplant some jasmine at the back of this bed and let it grow up the chicken wire. We'll have a nice beautiful natural wall blocking off the ugly carport. It'll make for a much nicer view from the back patio. We did the same thing several years ago on one end of the front porch and it's worked great.

Whew! It's finally done! And what a job it was. It took two weekends, many hours, 3 broken tools, and MANY loads of brush wheeled to the front yard for pick up. But the back fence line has now been completely cleared out. We cleared a third of it together two weekends ago then Tom finished the last 2/3 by himself.

Here's what it looked like before....

and here it is after!

Before...

after!

This is before mostly shows the overgrown compost bins. Nonetheless, here is before...

and after! Doesn't even look like the same yard, does it? Now that it's a nice open, accessible space Tom was able to get to the trees to hang some bee boxes. (Read more about that later this week at www.tsbeeshoney.com.) Our neighbors told us numerous times over the weekend how great it looked. Guess it was worse than we thought.

More Yard Work Than Gardening

2015-04-14T09:28:00.004-04:00

written by Yvonne

Believe it or not there are compost bins in this photo. Last time we moved the compost bins, we put up eight bins total. After a while, we realized we weren't using them all so we decided to reduce the number to four. We removed two bins a while ago and this weekend it was time to take down the other two and move the remaining bins to a new location. At the same time, we planned to clear out the whole back fence line.

First we cleared out the new space where the bins will reside. Next, Tom cut off all the jasmine that had grown in, around, and through the bins - not an easy job at all. The vines had become so intertwined with the wire it was hard to find the beginning of one and the end of another. (Stephanie - if you're still following, here's a good Find Olive photo.)

As Tom unearthed the bins, I went to task cutting the vines off.

My gloves are a bit too big for my hands so they became a hindrance for this detailed job. When I needed to use them again, all I had to do was find Honey and there they were.

With the space cleared out and the wire free of jasmine vines, the bins were set up in their new location. Tom went to work moving the compost shovel-full by shovel-full from the old location to the new. This took a very long time as we had quite a bit of compost 'cooking'.

Here is the area before....

and here is the after! What a difference, eh? The compost is now to the right and pushed all the way back to the fence. We cleared about half the fence line and we'll finish up the rest this coming weekend. The plan is to plant bee-friendly flowers and ground cover along the fence and use some of the space for possible bee yard expansion. (For more specifics on this, go to www.tsbeeshoney.com.)

Tom used several buckets to make compost tea which is just compost mixed with water. After these sit for a week, they'll get strained and the nutrient-rich water will be poured over the berries and fig tree.

After a long, tough day in the yard Saturday, we were treated to a relaxing day at a Charlotte Knights game (thanks again Porter). What a great weekend!

What Color is Spring? Green!

2015-04-08T14:15:00.001-04:00

written by Yvonne

Why do weeds grow so well in winter? I guess the berries grew too, you just can't see them because they are surrounded by weeds. Time to hand pull and ton of junk from the brambles.

Before (left side of bed).

After.

Before (right side of bed).

After. I didn't quite finish this side but it's good for now. Talk about A LOT of work!

Olive and Honey were big help in the yard as always. As I cleared a spot of weeds, Olive would lay in that spot. It warmed up nicely as the day progressed so I took off my socks and continued weeding. As you can see Honey found those socks and brought them to a patch that hadn't been weeded yet. Guess she wanted to ensure that I knew this area still needed to be worked on.

Lettuce still producing very well...

as is spinach.

And again this week collards were harvested - five bags worth...

and four bags of lettuce and spinach.

Another Super-Duper Spring Day

2015-03-29T17:35:00.002-04:00

written by Yvonne

Although we both would have rather been sitting on the front porch reading and/or napping, there was much Spring gardening and yard work to do. Luckily the weather was beyond beautiful which made it much easier to haul our butts outside to get some work done; high was 54 with not a cloud in the sky.

Tom has been out of town for a while so this was his first opportunity to get back to the strawberries. There were 12 plants left over from the first planting so he bought some dirt, filled up several pots, and planted the remaining strawberries.

The first round of plants have already started to flower.

According to Master Gardener Jerry Baker, we are to pinch off all the berries that form between now and mid-summer. This will ensure a Fall crop this year and two harvests each year thereafter. It's hard to see but in the dead center of this photo you can see a berry starting. Off with it's head!

Spring = greens, greens, and more greens which makes TY happy, happy and more happy! I harvested four bags of kale and four bags of collards. These were from plants that were overwintered, proving that it does pay to plant things in late Fall/early Winter for an early Spring harvest. We had already planted more kale and collards several weeks ago so hopefully we'll get one more round of greens before the heat of the summer hits.

What does one do with so many greens?

Friday night was kale pesto pasta.
Saturday morning we added kale to our breakfast green smoothie.
Saturday night it was sauteed collards with grit cakes, tomatoes and eggs.
Tonight there's a BIG kale salad waiting for us with some fish on the side.
Tomorrow night we'll have sauteed collards with more fish.
Tuesday night Tom will make grits and greens.
And any greens left over after all this will make its way into our breakfast smoothies the rest of the week. (I know you wish you were here, Rebecca.)

What?! Another batch of greens? Yes, but this is lettuce and spinach. This was also overwintered. Lunch for the week!

There was a freeze warning last night (temps dropped into the 20s) which is exactly why we left the hoops up on the bed with growing greens. Tom covered them up for the night and everything survived just fine.

While Tom was busy breaking our lawn mower, I got busy planting the rest of the Spring seeds which included:

snow peas
snap peas
cress
spinach
onions (2 varieties)
beets
carrots (2 varieties)
cabbage (round 2)

All four beds are now fully planted for the Spring. Next up, we'll start summer veg in pots and keep them in the greenhouse until the weather gets nice and hot.

A Beautiful Day to Begin TY's 2015 Veggie Patch

2015-03-08T18:10:00.001-04:00

written by Yvonne

We are still here! And we're still gardening! This past year, late Summer, all of Fall, and the first half of Winter turned out to be much busier than usual. So although we did continue gardening, we had to give up the blog posts because of time constraints. But it's a new year with new commitments to our garden, our good food habits, and our blog.

Sometimes the amount of things to do in the garden are overwhelming so it helps to have a plan that works with the amount of time you actually have for the day. Otherwise, you can get sidetracked and the things that really need to get done don't. So we had a task list for the day and worked it from top to bottom.

Tom's main focus was on berries. We bought strawberry plants (a new addition to TY's Veggie Patch this year) a couple weeks ago and we couldn't wait any longer to get them planted or we'd lose them. Unlike the raspberry, blackberries and blueberries, strawberries wouldn't do too good directly in the ground. Therefore, we decided to take the herb box and make it the strawberry box. The herbs will get a new home (more to come about that in early Summer).

Tom got to work cleaning out the herb box. He salvaged some oregano that survived the winter and put those in a separate pot until the new herb bed is ready.

This is the strawberry bundle we bought at Renfrow Hardware. There are 26 separate plants in this bundle. Each plant...

looks like this.

12 plants made it into the box. The rest will be planted in large containers alongside the box.

Next up he planted a new blueberry bush. He put it right next to the other two we already had, close to the bee hives.

Over the winter, we had kale, collards, spinach, and some lettuce growing under the hoop houses. In late fall/early winter, we harvested and ate some of all of them and left them to grow under the cover. Quite frankly, it's been months since I've even looked under them to see what has survived and what hasn't. Let's take a look...

Well, not bad. Looks like things didn't grow much, but they didn't die either so that's gives us a nice start for early Spring, otherwise known as "over-wintering".

First job for me was to weed this bed so the lettuce doesn't continue to get choked out.

Not too many weeds grew up between the kale and collards so that was an easy job.

On to beds 2 & 3. Since half of bed 2 was covered by the hoop house, it had virtually no weeds. Unfortunately, it also didn't have any turnips growing, which is what Tom planted in the fall. Once Tom finished with the berries, he weeded bed 3.

PLANTING TIME!!!

We put up markers even though all of this didn't get planted today. That way we made sure to leave space for the rest of the Spring plantings. Today we planted lettuce, collards, kale, Swiss chard, broccoli, and round 1 of cabbage. By the way, is there another kind of chard? If not, why is it not just called "chard"? Anyone?

When we bought the strawberries and blueberries, we also purchased a few herb plants. Two kinds of spearmint and one kind of rosemary. Our job with them right now is to keep them warm and watered in the greenhouse until they are ready to go into the #%!*#$ spot next to the back patio where we can't seem to get anything else to grow.

Olive and Honey were SOOOO excited to spend the day outside. They are out of practice so they pooped out pretty quick. And, they weren't the only ones.

A Colorful Late Summer

2014-08-21T09:21:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

A quick sketch of what to plant in each bed with Fall crops is necessary to keep us on track and to make sure we don't forget anything. Bed #4 is full of tomatoes right now but will be open in a month or so and we can use that for something else so it's good to have a plan to follow.

After mapping it out, we used stakes to identify what is where, then went about planting all the seeds. This bed is lettuce, kale, spinach and collards. Greens, greens and more greens!

We pulled out the last of the cow and crowder peas. Got 'em all shelled and ready for some fall/winter eatin'.

The berries appear ready to put out another small batch. Cool! Looks like not nearly as many as in early spring but any amount that comes up is good with us.

These are sunflower seeds I saved from a big sunflower plant several years ago. The seeds certainly germinated but these are about one quarter of the size of the original flower. Still, they are beautiful to look at.

Salsa anyone? I just love having this kind of variety and colors of tomatoes!

Cleaning Up With New Dirt

2014-08-04T17:05:00.004-04:00

written by Yvonne

It's already August which means some of the Spring plantings need to get pulled to make way for Fall crops. Here you can see the cucumbers have been eaten alive and are ready to pull. We got a nice amount of cucumbers from these two plants this summer.

The okra will stay in for now, especially since it hasn't produced anything yet.

Just as in the last two years, we definitely have tomatoes, they are just coming in WAY later than everyone else's. And this year we even started them in pots. Nonetheless, we're getting a nice large batch of 'em.

And a few are even starting to ripen!

And this would be your standard HUGE squash plants...

and the annual squash blossom beauty shot.

As far as the herbs go, the dill is super spindly and not producing enough fronds to use. No parsley ever came up. Basil is finally here and being put to good use. And of course more oregano than even Lidia Bastianich can use.

Three very small, stunted pepper plants are hanging on...

and they do shows signs of producing peppers. If these actually turn into peppers, it may qualify for the world's smallest pepper plant.

Tom has been composting food scraps and yard waste for several years now and we decided it was time to put the compost to use. He cut back lots of vines that had grown all around and into the bins while I cut back low-hanging tree branches to make easier work of scooping out the compost. The green monster you see on the left is a squash plant growing out of one of the bins.

Tom emptied out two compost bins to spread over three of the beds. We've had eight compost bins for a while now but we really only use the front four so Tom dismantled two of and we'll concentrate on using just four from here on out. Honey helped by running like a crazy dog around the beds.

Next you'll see the stages of what we did to each beds. Bed #1 before.

Bed #1 with compost.

Tom picked up a load of dirt on Friday so we'd be ready to go Saturday filling the beds with new soil.

Bed #1 with new dirt.

Bed #2 before.

Bed #2 with all cow and crowder peas pulled out and compost added.

Bed #2 with dirt added.

Bed #3 with LOTS of grass, one dwarf okra plant (that's what the variety is actually called) and three dwarf pepper plants (not an actual variety, just a description).

Bed #3 with weeds pulled, compost added and topped with new dirt.

Bed #4 is chock full of tomatoes so....

we just pulled the dead cucumber plants and the Swiss chard. I got a good harvest from the chard then ditched all the bug-eaten leaves and pulled up the plants.

When pulling the cucumber plants, these two baseball-bat sized cucumbers were attached to the ends. Tom wants to cut them up and bury them to see if they'll grow. After shoveling compost and dirt for a good while, we were too tired to do any more so we thought this would do for now.

Dirt is all out of the truck. "Ok dogs, let's go for a ride back to the carport! Olive/Honey place. Good girl Olive. Honey, Place. Place. Place"

"PLACE. HONEY, PLACE!"

Saving Seeds and Waitin' for Tomatoes

2014-07-25T18:05:00.004-04:00

written by Yvonne

All of these photos are several weeks old now but I thought I'd post them anyway. We've been harvesting cow and crowder peas like crazy. We haven't actually eaten any of them yet, we're just shelling them and letting them dry.

FINALLY the basil came up! Not really enough to do anything with yet but at least there is one plant. Maybe there will be enough for one margherita pizza and one batch of pesto. Please, please let there be enough for one batch of pesto!

This is either cilantro or flat-leaf parsley. Come on little plant; grow! I'm tired of buying you at the store.

A TY Veggie Patch summer staple - squash.

And again - FINALLY tomatoes have appeared. They are all green still but they're finally here.

Everything you see here is tomatoes. These big plants better be puttin' out big quantities of tomatoes.

If memory serves, last year I was disappointed with the size and quantity of pepper plants that, but by the end of summer we had more peppers than we knew what to do with. I'm in that same place again. Only two very small plants have come up. Hopefully they'll produce a lot.

This is what, the fourth or fifth time we've attempted to plant something in this spot? This is REALLY the last time we're attempting this. If the squash and hibiscus plants Tom planted here don't 'take', that's it for this area. Although we did just buy clover seeds to use as ground cover for the bees so maybe Tom can spread some here and see how it goes.

We're comfortable enough now with our garden knowledge and skills to start saving seeds from the produce we grow. One of the advantages of growing heirloom varieties is that you can replant the seeds year after year. We've done that with a few items but this year Tom has really committed to saving seeds from everything possible so we don't have to buy more seeds. So far this year he's saved seeds from crowder and cow peas, pole and bush beans, and cucumbers. Next will be tomatoes and peppers (assuming we get any peppers).

Unfortunately we weren't as inundated with cucumbers this year as in the past two years, but we certainly got a good amount. At the point we were picking one or two cucs every day, I remember making refrigerator pickles last year so I pulled out the recipe and made a couple of quarts. I know I said this last year but they taste JUST like Claussen's. YUM!

Getting Into The Hot Days of July

2014-07-04T11:18:00.002-04:00

written by Yvonne

Although the cabbage is coming in, it's getting eat by bugs so we may have to abandon these if we can't get the bug problem under control.

Thanks to Tom covering the blueberries with netting, we got blueberries this year! I took them and some fresh cherries (store bought) and made a crisp.

(The color on these next two photos are off - the plants are not really this gray looking.) WE HAVE BROCCOLI! Sure wish we knew what we did to FINALLY get them to produce the edible part.

And eat we did! I made a mushroom broccoli stir fry and it was delicious.

In answer to your question Rebecca: Don't get me wrong - I love the broccoli and we will continue growing as much as we can. However, I'm not as knocked out by the flavor in the same way I am with our home grown carrots, tomatoes and berries. To me it didn't taste much more broccoli-y than good store bought.

Our beans ran over. The vine laying across the two beds is actually on a stake but it fell over from the weight of the vine.

These crowder peas are coming in like gangbusters.

The kale has been a great addition to our smoothies in the mornings. But now the bugs have gotten to them too much and they need to be pulled up. I know from this photo it looks like they are healthy and edible, but when you turn the leaves over, there are lots of worms and eggs (ICK) on the backs that are just too much work to clean off.

The Swiss chard on the other hand is growing, it keeps growing, and it has no bugs. I made a big mess o' chard last night for dinner.

Cucumbers are coming in at the rate of two or three per day. Per Tom's suggestion I took two of the large baseball-bat sized cucumbers and harvested the seeds from them. He brought up a great point which is that we are buying heirloom seeds which means the seeds can be harvest and planted over and over again - we should start doing that with as many plants as possible, instead of buying new seeds every year.

Tomatoes are just starting to flower.

Before we lose too many more plants to bugs, Tom got out his Dustructor (a piece of equipment that is supposed to be used in beekeeping, but didn't quite work for him) and showered the garden (and himself) with BT. I think he learned his lesson and will stand up-wind next time.

Summer Time Good Eats

2014-06-25T11:00:00.002-04:00

written by Yvonne

They're finally here and they are delicious! We've been eating raspberries several mornings for breakfast with a some yogurt and topped with chopped pecans. Yum!

This weekend I harvested one big batch and made a raspberry buckle (kinda like coffee cake). Looks like there may be just enough left on the bushes for one or two more good breakfasts.

The chard seemed to take a long time to come up but now that it has, we can barely keep up with eating it.

I harvest about 1 bunch of the largest leaves for dinner one night (shown here). In about two days time the plants grew back so large that it looked like the I hadn't harvest any leaves at all.

This is... geez, I'm not sure what this is. Whatever it was, it ain't no more. We must have taken this picture a week or two ago because now there is no part of any bed that has this much empty space.

The crowder peas are... well... they're really crowded. :) As of this photo, they had just barely started to flower.

Just like last year, once the Spring snow and snap peas were done, the Summer cow peas started filling in.

The cabbage is forming heads which is great, but the bugs are certainly getting to them. Looks like we need to sprinkle some BT this weekend.

This, again, was taken two weeks ago because these tomatoes are now three times this size.

If you look just left of center you can see the long green beans. They can be hard to see at first, but as you move the leaves out of the way, there are tons of them. I made a big batch of beans and potatoes which was enough for dinner and lunch the next day. This past weekend I made green beans and shitake mushrooms which was enough for two dinner side dishes and one left over lunch.

Tom is in NYC on a photo shoot right now and he always gets to eat fantastic food. He ate the left over green beans and mushrooms for lunch before his flight and sent me the following text: "WOW, our fresh green beans and your amazing dish are WONDERFUL! I'll be hard pressed to eat something as wonderful in New York."

And there were STILL enough beans to blanch and freeze. I'll harvest more today and freeze them as well.

Let's talk cucumbers. We all know they're one of my favorites even though they're not super versatile. Similar to the Swiss chard they certainly do keep producing. After pulling the first cucumber of the season, two ready to pick the next day. After picking those two, there were four ready the next day... you get the picture.

Even after splurging by making cucumber water several days in a row, and coming up with a new cucumber 'appetizer' to enjoy before dinner each night, I've STILL given away a few bags worth of cucs to friends. Cucs aren't Tom's favorite so I tried to think of a way to have them that might spark his interest. I sliced one up, sprinkled it with lemon pepper, and topped with just a few pieces of crumbled blue cheese. We both LOVE it. So from now until the cucs are done, this will be our before dinner appetizer.

Is this what I think it is? No. No way. This can't be broccoli! I mean we planted broccoli sure, and the plants came up and all. But as you well know, we are always able to get broccoli plants, they just never produce the part you eat. I mean this is what, our fourth attempt at broccoli? OH MY GOSH, IT IS BROCCOLI!!!!!!!!!!

(Sorry about the color on this.) This is a BIG harvest of oregano that has been drying for a few weeks. I think it's safe to say we'll have plenty of dried oregano through the winter.

It's OK if you're envious of how we're eating right now...

A proud vegetable grower cooking and puttin' up lots of good food.

Everything is Green

2014-06-04T10:07:00.005-04:00

written by Yvonne

Due to vacations and traveling, the garden has exploded with green-ness. Granted some of that green is weeds but much of it is not.

This is a mass of pole and bush beans that are just starting to flower.

The broccoli and cabbage started from seed has really taken root. Keep your fingers crossed that THIS will be the year we get broccoli to sprout.

Lots of snow and snap peas coming in. SO good in salads.

Now THIS is a lettuce bed!

The Russian kale is doing well, we just have to eat it up before it gets too hot and bolts. After having made an awesome kale salad, I decided I don't like the Russian kale as well as standard curly kale. I've noted that for future seed purchases.

The chard that Tom painstakingly uncovered is just about ready for a first harvest.

The cucumber plants are still small but as I looked under the leaves I say blossoms which means cucs aren't too far away!

Tom pulled out the Mantis Tiller to weed two small areas in beds 3 and 4. It made quick work of the job.

Once the weeds were out, he planted all of the tomato and peppers seedlings which means our summer garden is official planted!

THE RASPBERRIES ARE HERE! THE RASPBERRIES ARE HERE!

I started a lot of herbs in pots but only the dill and thyme sprouted. So I planted those two (too small to see in this picture) along with basil, cilantro, chive, and parsley seeds. Basil has done well in the past started in pots, but it just didn't sprout this year. Although I like getting a jump on the season, it may be best to stick to planting herbs direct. They don't want to come up until it's super hot outside anyway so it may be just as effective to wait. The large plant you see here is the oregano that came back on its own.

And of course the standard dogs-enjoying-the-shade photo.

Growing, Growing, Growing!

2014-05-07T09:36:00.004-04:00

written by Yvonne

These beets made it all the way through a very cold winter, now it's time to eat 'em up. These few small beets produced two bags worth of greens. In addition, I harvested another three bags of spinach.

These are the beets still left in the ground. They've started to bolt so they'll be pulled up this week.

I planted bed #4 full of seeds right before winter hit and crossed my fingers that some would "take" but most didn't. Everything you see here is grass/weeds. Tom did a superb job of tilling the soil and getting the bed ready for summer plantings.

Hey look! A few carrots did grow after all. They got thrown in with the beets and a few red potatoes, some garlic, purple onion, and asparagus for an oven-roasted root veg dinner Sunday night. Yum!

Once he tilled up the bed, he stuck in a couple of cages in and plated the three cucumber plants that were started in pots. At the very end of the bed (where you can see green) there is some Swiss chard coming up. We haven't been able to put hay down around the chard yet because it's hard to tell what is chard and what is weeds. The chard, however, is just now getting big enough that we'll be able to snuff out those weeds soon.

The rest of the photos are general updates on our Spring plantings:

Pole beans and bush beans.

One of these is broccoli and one is cabbage.

Crowder peas.

Lettuce, lettuce, lettuce

Spinach and kale.

Snap peas and snow peas.

BERRIES that are now starting to flower.

This is that one spot where we've attempted several things but had no luck. Tom planted some volunteer tomatoes here last year and they did good for a while, but ultimately the cold got to them so we don't know for a fact that tomatoes would grow here. This year we're trying out two very hardy vegetables that grow very well in the beds, but take up a lot of space. On the left we planted okra and on the right is one straight-neck squash seedling and some black beauty squash seeds. It will be great if these do well here because it would save us room in the beds.

And as usual, the dogs enjoyed their day in the garden with us. :)

If you want to keep up with this year's bee news, be sure to go to www.tsbeeshoney.com. Doesn't look like there will be any honey for sale this year. As "urban farmers" we are at the whims of nature and that means sometimes we'll have success and sometimes not.

A Late Spring Frost

2014-04-16T10:31:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

The snow, snap, and cow peas are all coming up (foreground).

This weekend I planted three kinds of beans and some crowder peas.

We're going to try this patch next to the house again for melons. No mystery melons that turn out to be squash, but actual melons. I planted four varieties and we'll see what happens. This area gets plenty of sun so that won't be an issue. The soil, however, is pretty dense so if things don't grow here we're going to have to work the soil more.

All the white flowers shown here will turn to blueberries. Wow! Now, if we can get to them before the birds do, we'll be in business.

The blackberries have come back as well.

To show just how fast the berries are growing, the first picture shown below is from last weekend. The next one down is one week later. If they produce as many berries as leaves, man we're gonna be happy campers!

The NC Extension service listed the last frost date as April 15. Guess they know what they're talking about because although it's been in the high 70s for about a week, all of a sudden we had a frost last night with another one tonight! Tom covered the peas, spinach, and lettuce before going to bed so hopefully they'll all survive these next two cold nights.

Spring Garden Well Under Way

2014-04-09T10:22:00.003-04:00

written by Yvonne

One day these berry canes were just bare sticks. Next day, poof! They sprouted leaves. Tom chopped them all the way to the ground last fall. We'll see if they produce berries this year or not. Hopefully they will.

Another surprise? The oregano came back in the herb box and it's growing fast too. I cut some for drying because we are all out.

The three types of peas (snow, snap, cow) I planted two weeks ago have ALL sprouted. There are about 15 plants in all that have come up. One set of peas I forgot to plant were crowder peas Dan (Tom's brother) brought us last year. I'll get those planted this weekend or the next.

It's hard to see, but the small rows of green are lettuce. We've gotten some good rain over the last several days which has really made everything spring up.

These carrots were actually planted at the end of last fall. They survived the winter under the hoop houses and are now coming up.

Seeds were started in pots for the following items: cilantro, basil, thyme, chives, dill, two kinds of summer squash, two varieties of cucumbers, six kinds of tomatoes. Seeds were sown directly in the beds for beets and Swiss chard.

The rain really brought on a lot of spinach. Before the current plants bolt, I wanted to harvest as much as possible.

All of the collard plants began to bolt (even though it hasn't been that hot, so I'm not sure what's up with that) so I harvested all I could get from them before pulling them out. The two Russian kale plants still looked good so I left them in the ground but there wasn't enough to harvest this week.

This is the oregano to be dried after getting a quick bath.

This week's harvest produced four bags of spinach and three bags of collards. Guess what we're eating this week? Green, greens and more greens!

First Day of Spring

2014-04-02T09:10:00.000-04:00

written by Yvonne

The seeds Tom planted several weeks ago have begun to sprout. So far what's sprouted is broccoli and/or cauliflower (yes, we're trying them both yet again).

The winter winds really made a mess of the hoop houses this year. When we put them up next fall we'll have some repairs to do for sure.

Olive always hates to see the hoop houses taken down because it means no more cats hiding underneath.

Honey did her part to help by eating as much grass as possible.

We have a great cookbook called "Greens, Glorious Greens" and it's all about how to cook all kinds of greens (imagine that). There's one whole chapter on dandelion greens - yes, those dandelion green. The weeds that grow in your yard (pictured below.)

Bed #2 was chock full of dandelion greens. Tom has been dying to try them out in a dish but I was skeptical. I agreed to give them a try if he agreed to only harvest ones from the garden beds and not any from the yard where any number of dogs may have peed on them. Ewww!

This is a before of bed #3 - chock full of weeds and possibly spinach.

Sure enough there was some good spinach in there!

On the other half of bed #3, I planted six varieties of lettuce. Hopefully they'll come up before it gets too hot.

Bed #2 wasn't as full of weeds because I'd already weeded half the bed not long ago.

After Tom pulled out all the dandelion greens, he uncovered some great collards, a little bit of kale, and some beets.

At the other end of bed #2 I planted cow peas, snap peas, and snow peas. That might be a bit too much for this small of an area, but we'll see.

Now THIS looks much better. The hoop houses are down for the season, three out of four beds have been weeded and planted, and the tall grass around the beds cut back.

The dogs were SO happy to enjoy the day outside, as were we.

Seeds Started!

2014-03-03T16:35:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

(This was from two weeks ago)

We have a big house re-decorating project in our very near future so we had to get some seeds going if we were to get a jump on Spring. Tom laid out some left over roofing tiles to block the grass from growing into the green house.

The previous greenhouse cover was torn in several places and one of the zippers broke so we bought a new one.

It was a beautiful day so Tom set up a make-shift workbench outside.

He filled up the pots with dirt and started planting seeds. He got carried away and ended up planting two different types of seeds in each of the pots in Tray 4.

Who knows, maybe we'll get a parsley-cabbage hybrid of some kind. It will be interesting to see what comes up in these pots since each one has two different seeds.

One bag of dirt was chock full of ants so he dumped it into the herb bed.

All seeds got planted and set in the greenhouse. We started cabbage, 4 different kinds of peppers, parsley, broccoli, onions. We were also supposed to get lettuce, peas, collards, kale, Swiss chard and spinach planted directly in the beds but that didn't happen. It'll have to wait a few weeks before we can get to it.

Honey and Olive enjoyed their day outside.

It's Time To Start the 2014 Garden!

2014-02-11T15:21:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

It's February.

Time to get started on our 2014 garden.

Look how excited Honey and Olive are about getting the garden started.

It certainly is perfect weather for it. OK, so maybe TODAY isn't the day we'll start droppin' seeds into the garden beds, but when it snows it actually is the exact right time to get started.

We filled in our seed-starting chart which helps determine when to start seeds in pots, when to start seeds directly in the beds, and when to transfer the seedlings from pots to bed, all of which revolves around the last frost date for the year. This year the last date for frost is April 11.

There are a lot of seeds to get started including: cabbage, lettuce, collards, kale, peppers, parsley, and spinach.

We managed to get a bag full of newspaper pots made before...

Honey got hold of the pot maker and used it as a chew toy! Looks like she enjoyed the heck out of it I guess.

Another Bed Planted

2013-11-19T13:19:00.000-05:00

written by Yvonne

Time to tackle bed #4. It's been overgrown for some time now, and while nothing new may grow, it won't hurt anything to clean it out and throw some seeds down. So that's what I did.

After cleaning it out, I planted cabbage, 2 kinds of carrots, and Swiss chard. Tom only had enough materials for a half bed's worth of hoop house which he installed on this bed once I was done.

Wow! Look at that lettuce!

The kale gets harvested down about every two weeks now.

We'll be eating beat greens VERY soon. They need to get just a little bit larger.

Collards are getting harvested about once every three weeks now.

Wait, what's this? How did these get in here?

Looks like someone was helping to split firewood. Just get the wedge in place, pound it down with the sledgehammer a bunch of times and...

Paula Bunyan proudly shows off her fine log-splitting work. :)

It's all Green

2013-11-11T08:46:00.001-05:00

written by Yvonne

Tom got beds 2 and 3 buttoned up for winter. As of now, these are the only beds we have planted.

This bed is all lettuce and spinach and it's coming along fine.

The kale has been producing like crazy. Now that we have greens coming in on a regular basis, we've gone back to using them in our smoothies every morning (vs. frozen greens).

Beets are doing well...

as are the collards.

So much for late-season tomatoes. Only took one cold snap and they bit the dust.

We went through the plants and pull off as many green tomatoes as we could.

Then we lined them up on our window sills and on the ledge between the two parts of the windows so they would hopefully ripen.

They are everywhere! The lined-up tomatoes look like soldiers protecting the house from outside invasion.

The last batch of peppers for the year. I sliced all these up and froze them to use throughout the winter.

Back on Track

2013-10-29T08:21:00.001-04:00

written by Yvonne

No, the date stamped on the picture isn't wrong.

Yes, I realizes it reads October and yes, these are tomatoes.

And so are these...

and these.

And yes, these are the beginnings of cucumbers and yes, I know these things aren't supposed to grow in October. All of these were late season plants we started just to see what happened. What happened was everything grew! We will remember this for next year and not hesitate to plant a second round of everything to take us through to the first frost. My prediction is that this stuff isn't going to survive until they ripen. Tom is sure they will. Temperature outside is dropping fast. Stay tuned to see what happens.

The Russian kale grows like crazy. We've already harvest some and need to harvest some more.

Beets are coming along.

First batch of collards are ready to harvest. (Check out that dog action in the background!)

The second planting of collards (small plants in the front) have all taken off.

You can start to see the rows of spinach (darker) and lettuce (lighter color).

A big basket of health!

Last of the cow peas for the season.

Holy Cow! It's October 1!

2013-10-01T12:06:00.004-04:00

written by Yvonne

We've had pretty good success with the melons...

What do you mean, "Those don't look like melons, they look like butternut squash?" Hmm. They sure do look like squash, don't they? Well, as it turns out, that's what they are.

Before you think us complete idiots, yes, we had planted some volunteer plants that we had assumed were melons, but we also planted a TON of melon seeds in the same location so we figured at least SOME of what came up were melons.

Early on, when we still thought they were melons, we cut one off the vine that was white-ish in color. It was green inside, but of course Honeydew melons are green so we proceeded to try cutting it with the intent of eating it. The knife wouldn't even go thought it. Then we smelled it - hmm, doesn't smell like melon. Kinda smells like squash. Know what? I think this is a squash. We left the others on the vine and just watched their progress. They continued to change color and get more butternut-squashy looking until we finally determined, sho nuf' those are squash. We've eaten two now and these two are ready to be eatn. They taste GREAT as squash, not so good as melons.

We purchased new fall seeds from Sow True in Asheville to get more Fall crops going. We bought 5 varieties of lettuce, two carrots and spinach. (Some of what's shown is seeds we already had.)

I did some work on the small herb box. The oregano finally came up but it was long after the dill, basil and cilantro. I cut most off this oregano to dry.

I cut back all of the basil and made a large batch of pesto. The first of the season. (Honey helped.)

Bed #1 is looking good with our late summer crops.

The dwarf okra is certainly dwarf in size. We really didn't get the okra planted in time but I think if Tom get's a least one serving, he'll be happy. The days are still warm (high 70s) but the evenings are getting cooler and cooler so I don't expect they'll last long.

Tom has been pruning the tomatoes plants and it seems to be working. As new branches come out, he pinches them off. This is supposed to direct the growing energy to the fruit instead of the plant.

It looks like we'll have at least two varieties of late-summer tomatoes. Although today is October 1 so I think they'd technically they are early Fall tomatoes. Is there even such a thing? I just hope they hold on and ripen before it gets too cold.

Same with round two of cucumbers. Hopefully they hold on long enough to produce something, but I won't be surprised if they don't. Not sure if I mentioned this in the last post or not, but Tom planted these cucumbers the same way he did some of the tomatoes; he just took a cucumber that had fallen off the vine and partially broken open, and shoved it into the ground. It certainly worked!

Peppers are STILL putting out.

And changing colors too.

We have had several dinners over that last few months of Red Pepper Fajitas and it looks like there will be for this weekend!

The new kale Tom planted a few weeks ago is coming along.

The collards are small but are coming out.

Now, on to Bed #3. Here is the before of our embarrassing laziness of the latter half of the summer.

Tom got to work pulling out the mass of old tomato plants and VERY old kale.

Way to tackle it, babe!

Once Bed #3 was all cleared, I planted five types of lettuce. As I face the bed, from right to left is:

Red Romaine
Lolla Rosa Darky
Speckled Amish Butterhead
Green Oakleaf
Black Seeded Simpson

As much salad as we're eating these days, we felt a whole bed of lettuce would not be overdoing it.

Tom also added beets and more collard seeds to Bed #2 (behind him). Then a good watering for all the new seeds.