Here's a peek into our garden right now. We are in the weeds literally and figuratively, but we make some progress every day. Squash bugs are our biggest insect enemy and crab grass our meanest weed. It has been a typical beginning to August, mostly hot and humid with a few good storms and a few cooler, breezy beautiful days. Abigail and I planted this "back gate garden" late in the season, so it is just beginning to bloom. It is really sweet.
The gourds and baby pumpkins that came from Dodie and Paw are climbing their way to the top of the Chikin' Coop. The squash bugs are causing some trouble, but there are a few nice gourds at the moment.
100's of tomatoes...plum and Virginia Select. First batch of sauce is in the freezer.
The mint flowered and is beautiful. It is covered with pollinators. I hope that they are doing their job.
The fig tree is producing like mad and I have to make preserves tomorrow! They are so sweet, soft and warm straight from the tree. I love figs. The kids loved climbing the ladder to pick the ones at the tippy top.
Our first ground cherries...Pineapple Cossack. Very interesting flavor- creamy and sweet. Reminds me of something that I ate in Brazil, but I don't know what. I am not sure what to do with them, so I just eat them.
Seymour the Pumpkin Vine is no longer just a vine! We have found two pumpkins so far. This one is about 10 inches in diameter. Happy Halloween!
A few more days and Owen will get to taste his first homegrown cantaloupe. There are several hidden in the small garden. Can't wait to taste them with him.

The Garden is Booming!!

Fig tree will provide us with tons of fruit soon

Dill is ok after caterpillars found food

Swiss Chard is still growing strong and cantaloupes are growing well

Slow growing peppers

Acorn Squash under a cover

All our tomatoes, but having trouble with aphids

cucumbers growing great

Squash and Zucchini growing great

Deans Purple Beans climbing and making a lot of food

Bush beans growing strong

Basil will give us lots of pesto through the winter

Summertime and rain has brought us exceptional growth in the garden.

Black Swallowtail

While investigating the garden I found two caterpillars in our dill. I was about to smoosh them when I looked harder at them to see their amazing markings. Therefore I decided to leave them and look them up online. It turns out that they are Black Swallowtail caterpillars. We need the dill in order to pickle for the winter, but we decided to let them hang out in order to have cool butterflies in our garden.

We can't find the caterpillars anymore so maybe they have found a place to change into a flying critter.

This is the butterfly we hope to get out of our garden

The Garlic is Ready!!!!

Each year we plant garlic in our garden before Oyster Fest in Nov. This is one of my favorite items that we grow in our garden. It doesn't take a lot of space and rewards us with garlic scapes in the spring to use in our cooking. Then, after the garlic is here it makes a great gift to other people's kitchen's and is fantastic in all our recipe's.

After you get started, save several bulbs to divide in the fall and stick in the ground root side down. If you don't have a garden try to find a space in your yard that receives full sun that you can devote to your garlic. Today, while GeeZee and Coolpop visited on their way to the fantasy land of northern Michigan. We pulled our garlic with Abigail and Owen.

When you pull your garlic, don't wash it!!! Hang it in a space to dry and the dirt will bang off of it eventually. Once weather cools, cut the tops off and store inside so the bulbs do not get mushy.
LOVE the Garlic!!

Life is Better with Rainbow Chard

This spring has a been a good one for our swiss chard. Chard, along with blueberries are my favorite super foods! I got the seeds in the ground in very early March and we have been eating five color silverbeet since early May. We also had a few rows overwinter in the big garden and have been harvesting it since April. Rainbow chard makes you happy when you see it growing in the garden...red stems, white, pink and my favorite yellow brighten any weedy patch! It actually is a great ground cover and keeps the weeds under control.

In the kitchen I have tried cooking chard with various ingredients. It basically tastes great with anything. Tonight...sauted onions, garlic scapes, yellow squash, tomatoes, and chard. You can even make a great sandwich with chard...saute a little onion with the chopped stems of chard, add chopped leaves with some salt, pepper and Soul Seasoning. Slice muenster cheese and place on bread, add cooked chard and a little seasoning. Makes a delicious grilled cheese and chard sandwich. This will definitely hold me over until tomato sandwich season! In the fall I will cook apples with chard...really anything works with this garden jewel.

So pretty, so tasty and so good for you. I am glad that I discovered chard several years ago when we joined our CSA, Dayspring Farm. Spinach used to be my go to green, but it is tough to grow tender spinach in Tidewater Virginia. Chard doesn't even get very dirty...a quick rinse and it is dirt and grit free. Life is better with rainbow chard.

FOOD!

All of our salad greens with broccoli on the right

The end of the chard with basil in the middle

carrots

Garlic!!

Sugar Snap Peas in the middle of the yard

Chard growing around the base of the peas

Beans starting to climb

We have lots of food growing everywhere. The garden is really looking great. All of our hard work is paying us back tenfold.  The kids love being in the garden when we are collecting things for dinner. It is great having the sugar snap peas in the middle of the yard. Abigail and Owen walk by all the time and pull one off and eat one. Edible Landscape!

Covering the Cucumbers and Squash

I am a lucky mom. My Mother's Day gifts were flexible garden hoops and "super hoops", along with summer weight row cover cloth. Today we covered the hills planted with zucchini, patty pan squash, and two types of cucumbers. They are planted in the bed in the center of the garden which was until a last weekend beautifully overrun with joe-pye weed, bee balm, and 7 foot tall yellow cone flowers. All of these beauties have found new homes in our yard or in gardens of friends. We hope that the heat of this week doesn't lead to any problems with germination under the cloth. I will be out there again at 6:15 tomorrow morning to water (rain passes through the cloth). Wishing for thunderstorms and the cooler temperatures of last week, but grateful for feeling of summer at our fingertips. I hope that we aren't over-thinking the garden! How 'bout those onions?

The Garden 5/23/11

So far the garden is doing well!! We have produced a lot of greens for salad and a lot of sugar peas. We are mulching a lot to add organic matter and fight weeds. We have removed all of the flowers out of the center bed and added cucumbers and squash.