"The Gardens"

I think Peas are so pretty...

Here is the picture of the trellis for the peas i promised. It was some work, but we should be able to use it all season... at least 2 crops, i think...

These are the peas now! Aren't they lovely!? We have already been nibbling away at them while we are outside...
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Here is a shot of the "Kitchen Garden" next to the house. The brick on these matches the accent brick on the front of the house.

You can see what looks like "junk" behind the house... I assure you it is not!!! :) The tall round towers are the boys' fort... Jerry made a door into it and then built some stairs up to the second level... its very cool... its next to the teepee that you can't see. Then there are some pallets of soil mix and blocks... we are building some more beds in the landscaping by the house... i need more room! I want to grow corn and squash, cucumbers and melons! I also plan on putting in a small pond kit so we have the sound of running water in the back by the patio! We also wanted to catch our rain water and use it on the gardens when we can... Jerry had a big "tub" that they use for Petroleum piping installation that was extra so he brought it up and we put it under the gutter... well... it rained the other night and it is FULL and ran over already!!! We plan on painting it the same color as the siding... now we will have to empty it first! ha!

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This is my new cold-frame! It is lovely! I got it from www.groworganic.com. I also bought the automatic openers... so that when we are not around they will still vent themselves so as to not cook my plants! It really works and is just temperature sensitive, it doesn't need electric or even the sun, just heat and you can adjust it for different temps! So very cool!!

Some Parsley growing... it is so pretty! and quite strong tasting!

These are a couple of the new beds... they are about 3.5x7 feet, we needed to make them smaller so we could fit more in. We think we will be able to fit about 12 of these in!!!! It's going to be fabulous!!! I plan on planting these this afternoon... not sure what i am going to put in yet though... We fill the cores of the concrete blocks and then we can plant small things in there... like beets, carrots, onions, marigolds. I will be posting more pictures of these as they get finished...


These are our display gardens for WeedFreeGardenbed.com so they are up the hill at our shop that where we keep our construction equipment for J. L. Cook. You can see our house way back on the left!! I was standing way up on the forks of the forklift to get this picture!

The corn is starting to grow!!! How exciting!!!

Around the yard...

These cute little things were riding in the trailer for the John Deere! We had been working on the gardens and they were both very dirty!!!

So Pretty!!! Such a rich color!!!

These are such awesome colors!!!

Grape flowers! Aren't they funky!? It's rather neat thinking there will be a bunch of grapes here in a couple months...

These guys think the alfalfa field was planted for them... They are out there all the time! Usually there are more of them though... at least nine or so... We love to watch them... but as soon as i walk away... Alex and Anthony are banging on the window or yelling out to scare them off... silly boys!

Potatoes!!!

So Last year we thought we would see if we could grow through the winter in our raised beds... we covered them with 2 layers of plastic on arched black pvc... that was a disaster... we get entirely too much snow and it collapsed the covers... so we were really anxious to see if our seed potatoes made it through the winter! In March (15th) when some things were mostly thawed, we got rid of the arched things and put up the regular support system for the plants and then covered it with one layer of plastic... this worked really well on the straight beds... the beds that kind of jig-jag do not stay covered well at all!!! the wind blows too hard here!! So we waited to see if anything would come up... On April 22 i saw shoots coming up in this small straight bed!!! I was actually with a customer and could not help but shout for joy!!! I was soooo excited!!! so we have been watching them carefully since and photographing their progress! Finally yesterday i got up the nerve to dig in a little and find a few new potatoes and we tried them for lunch! They were awesome and i can hardly wait to harvest them all!!!! I dug up some German Butterballs and some La Ratte Fingerlings.

We also have planted:
Yukon Gold
Red Norland
Purple Peruvian (new this year)
Colorado Rose (new this year)
Nicola (new this year)
Yellow Finn
Russian Banana Fingerlings

We haven't tasted the new ones that we are growing this year, but the descriptions sounded good so we are trying them!!

We bought all of our seed potatoes from Peaceful Valley Farm (groworganic.com) you can buy organically grown or conventional. I also buy garlic form them. Just a really good company!

One major problem we are having is potato bugs... they are nasty! and there seem to be thousands of them!! Jerry and Alex go around smashing them between two sticks or something... i can't do it... its too gross! So next year... we can not plant them anywhere near where they were this year... which may be kind of hard since they are in 5 beds!!! Equivalent to 4 - 4x16feet beds.

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May 7th

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May 18th.

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May 25th

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May 31st.

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June 11th.

These are German Butterball Potatoes. They are really yummy!! they really are like butter inside, so yellow and smooth! This bed sprouted the best... but they also had their cover on all winter mostly!




These are the La Ratte Fingerlings - they just may be our favorite potato so far! They have purple flowers and grow pretty tall as you can see.

Don't they have such pretty little flowers!!? Apparently they actually make little seeds too! Amazing... Maybe i will see if i can save some and see how long it takes to grow something from an actual potato-seed rather than a seed-potato. Should be interesting.

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June 17th.

Looking for potato bugs...

Garden Progress!

So this post is all about our gardens... there aren't any little boys in these pictures! :)



This is my island bed that gets the most weeds in it every year... because it is down wind from the hill in front of the house... which is where the wind blows from... But we have a lot of pretty stuff in this bed... the crocuses this year were really lovely! There are 2 tart cherry trees, burning bush, daffodils, tulips, geraniums, balloon flowers, black eyed susans, echinacea, stella d'ora, some grasses, evergreen bushes and some other things i don't remember the names of...


The purple flowers are the hardy geraniums that i love, although they are not the same ones i had a few years ago... those were more compact and they actually spread like a ground cover, sometime maybe i can find those again...Also this year some mint showed up... Oh my! is that stuff all over or what! I am not sure what to do with that... it is pretty and like a ground cover, and smells wonderful!!!


This stuff is so pretty i just had to share!


This is the view from the front... I realize it needs some help up there... It is where i have all the spring bulbs, so i need to find something that is low growing and fill in there... I really think the Huchera (coral bells) are pretty and now there are so many different foliage colors...

Does any body know what this stuff is? It is quite invasive and i am not sure what it does!!! does it flower!? I put in a gallon size pot last year and now it is covering a four foot area now!!!


Some of the crocuses! They are so pretty and the sure sign of Spring!!! YAY!!!



Some of the Kazakh Tulips! Just ready to bloom and it SNOWED!!!!!! I couldn't believe it! But as you see in the next picture, it didn't even phase them!!!


Aren't they FABULOUS!!!!? (Angela, I am going to buy you some this year, really... sorry i forgot last year. It is already on my calendar for September!)

These are the Kaufmann type, i am pretty sure.

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These are our garden beds by the house. The "Kitchen" garden. We decided to change out the soil to the WeedFree soil mix... Unfortunately we have to shovel by hand all of it out!!! We had built some "cold frames" to grow stuff later and start earlier... but it did not work so well... bummer! So we dumped all the excess soil around the lawn... The lawn is all sand and could always use more topsoil! Recently though we have discovered the chives still growing away in a small pile Jerry put in the woods! So we have been eating those... well ok... Alex has been... He LOVES chives and onion tops!!!! Crazy boy... He will eat lots of those at any time... then whew does his little boy breath stink!!!!


So we dug out all the soil...
Then we put in a weed barrier and hardware cloth to make sure moles can't come up into the garden! Yeah... that would be terrible!! After that we can fill it with the mix! woohoo!!


This is the next batch of Kazakh tulips!! These are Greigii tulips, I believe. Aren't the leaves great!? I LOVE these!


These are a Greigii type, too.


We went to Missouri for the Spring planting festival at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed company. Jerry's sis and kids met us there... It had rained 8 inches that week and then rained all day that we were there!!! I hardly took out my camera! But we finally took it out at the end, because we had to document that we spent all day slopping around in the mud!!! What a mess! So funny!


When we came home this is what i saw first when i drove up! The Tulips were still blooming, but seemed to be even brighter than before! So pretty!!!


Our first seedlings!!!! Sugar Snap Peas!! We can hardly wait to eat them... mostly we eat them in the garden... but this year we planted a lot more, so we might be able to get them inside for dinner or to freeze some... we will see! We still have to make the trellis that they will grow up... I think i have a picture of that... maybe next post.


Apple blossoms at a friend's house... Our Apple trees are WAY to small to blossom!


I think we are going to have GRAPES this year!!!!!! We are so excited!!! The Vines are covered in baby grape bunches!!! We have had it in for about 4 years and we got grapes once... one bunch. I can't even take the time to count how many bunches are on there this year... so many!!! But the leaves are amazing colors when they first start growing!!!


Here's our Lettuce, spinach, mesclan blend, and green onion "patch." All our favorites! Even Anthony likes to eat the leaves out there in the garden... I have to get after the boys often as they pull the whole plant up trying to get a leave to eat! :)


We planted a bunch of fruit trees this Spring!! Most of them we got from "Trees of Antiquity" in California. They have Organic, Heirloom varieties... LOTS of them!!! We bought 10 apples and 2 pears from them... and would have bought peaches and cherries too, but they were sold out already of the kinds that we can grow here. So we bought the peaches and cherries at a store here... HUGE difference!!! Next year i am going to try to get some from TOA though!

When i first requested a catalog from TOA i guess i forgot my address, so they had to contact me to get it... when i replied, my blog address is always in my signature in the email, i discoved that the lady that would send out my catalog was also researching adoption and had been interested in Kaz, but was also checking out Kyrgystan! What a small world... we have kept in touch ever since! They offer an Apple tree named Alexander, so you know we had to order it!! When she sent out the invoice, she gave it to us as a gift in honor of our Alex!!! i couldn't believe how sweet and generous she was!! So we really cherish that apple now!!! Soon i hope to be able to send her something for her baby... although i am sure it won't be an apple tree!! haha! I can't wait to taste them all! So then we ended up choosing each our own apple trees... Anthony gets the Mutsu Apple... huge and tart... haha! Jerry gets the Roxbury Russet, me the Strawberry parfait, and Kimi gets the Snow Apple! haha! We also have Spitzenburg, Ashmead's Kernal, and Cox's Orange. They all sound so very good!! We are excited about them... we have dwarfs, semi-dwarfs, and standard sizes.


Of course, my water lilies! However, my pond has a leak somewhere in the bottom pond... bummer... that is going to be a big job to find, so it will wait a while until all the planting and gardenbed selling is done for the season!

More updates soon!!! :)