Grow Grow Grow!!!

Remember the "Potato" post I did a few weeks ago? Well... the potatoes are about done... I have dug most of the beds out already and just have 2 to go! Here are the last 2 pictures of the German Butterball bed... just before i dug them and after i pulled the plants up... there was about 3/4 of a bushel of potatoes in there... we had been snitching potatoes all along since they bloomed... so there was probably at least a full bushel... I have no idea what is normal... I was hoping to get more than that, but maybe that is great... no clue!




Oh dear.... I really hate these tomato worms... They hit us really really bad this year! good grief! I would pick at least 10 off everyday for a couple weeks! a few days i found as many as 30!!!!! Ick!!! And they snap their teeth at you when you take them off!!! The boys enjoy "disposing of them in the stream... dropping them from the bridge...



These are some things i picked one day... We pretty much eat zuchini everyday... although we have about 6 different kinds, so it doesn't get boring... i am about to pick my first "patty pan" or scalloped squash today... i am pretty excited about that... i will of course photograph it before we eat it!


The Corn is nice and tall and we have had a few ears now... very yummy so far... and we have only tasted 2 kinds. True Gold and Stowells Evergreen. We are also growing our first popcorn this year... a variety we picked up in Kazakhstan last year. So that will be fun!



A beautiful purple cabbage that we found in Kazakhstan too. I will be interested to find out if it is variety that we already have on not here in the US.


Some tomatoes in our "Kitchen Garden" The plants are so big around at the base they look like trees! We have 20 kinds here at the house... testing to see what our favorites are! We have 4 from Kazakhstan planted here. We have more Kaz tomatoes planted in the display gardens. I am planning to do a post on just tomatoes sometime... but it will be later, since not all kinds are ready yet!!


Another view of the three beds... That very large plant in the forground is an eggplant! Japanese White Egg... they truely look like eggs! Then we have peppers and then 10 tomatoes in that bed... The second bed has lettuce, Chard, kale and 10 more tomatoes. The final bed has herbs and peas in it... the peas are about done in this picture... i am not pulling them out yet, because i am letting the seeds dry so that i can plant again this summer. I think we will try the peas that we got in Kaz there as well.


These are the new beds we put in. 12 in all... 6 that are 3.5ft x 7 and then 6 that are 3.5ft x 9. so i have 2 rotation sets and then 4 that will be permanent... like rhubarb, asparagus, strawberries and herbs. Since i have taken this picture it has grown A LOT!!! The blue tub is for collecting rainwater...

One rotaion set will contain 1. onions, garlic, beets 2. Tomato family (potatoes, eggplant, pepper) 3. Cabbage Family 4. Carrot Family. Then you just rotate from one bed to another clockwise... it is a 4 year rotation plan!

The other set will have 1. Tomato 2. Corn 3. Beans/Peas 4. Squash/Cukes/Melons

It makes "planning" the garden soooo much easier to have it set up that way!!! As long as you know how much you need to plant! Which I am still experimenting with!

The gardens are growing well, in spite of the COLD summer we have had... we've probably only had a total of two hot-ish weeks this whole summer!!! July was cold, and last night it was in the forties and here it is the end of August!!!! Its still supposed to be at least WARM here! So i think things have grown a little slower than they should... but i am hoping for a warm September at least!

Beautiful Boys!!! (if i say so myself)

We did an impromptu photo shoot the other day, I just couldn't help myself... the boys looked so cute and the grass was so green and the light was so perfect outside... This is by far... only a few of them... I might just post more...




Anthony wasn't cooperating too well... He intentionally looks away from me... so while i am saying "look at mommy!" Alex is trying to grab his face and make him look! It does not work!



Anthony totally copies everything Alex does that he can! Its so cute (sometimes) and funny!!






Alex in his "big boy" jeans and his fancy Honda shirt that we bought in Baja during the race a couple years ago... He thinks he is HOT STUFF!! Sooo cute!






Well... I took Anthony out the next day by himself and got quite a few really beautiful shots of him alone!

"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...