April 18, 2015 - Garden Update!

The favas are still producing but production is waning...  I totally understand now why the Sicilians call favas the "lucky bean".  Not only are they delicious and nutritious, I'm fairly certain they're also foolproof to grow once they're planted properly.

This is our harvest from today.  The ones with dark spots are from the infested plants.  The beans inside are still perfect.  This is the 4th basket we've harvested so far this Spring and I'm sure we'll get one more of these before they're done.

On top of giving you several pounds of food for a few dollars, and being super low maintenance, they also replenished or soil with nitrogen just in time for tomato season.  And there was also an unexpected surprise: they ended up being a utopia for ladybugs.

I couldn't get my camera to focus, but you can see the plant is crawling with ladybugs.

A few of the fava plants toward the back of our garden became infested with aphids.  I decided to let them be.  Next thing we knew, ladybugs were mating and laying eggs all over the infested plants.  Now we have tons of ladybugs crawling all over our garden.  Awesome!

Ladybug larvae and and eggs

And here's what else is going on in our garden today...

Our grape vine is full of baby grapes!

Tons of baby grape clusters!

 "Sweet Million" cherry tomato plant (not from seed)

 Bonnie and Molly roaming free and foraging, as all chickens should...

 "Cherokee Purple" heirloom tomato (from seed)

 Our tiny blackberry bush...

 Figs...

 Bonnie and Molly in the garden...

 Row of baby spinach (from seed) in the front, row of baby golden beets (not from seed) in the back

 Baby crookneck squash!

 Another zucchini (not from seed), followed by 4 different types of cucumbers (also not from seed)

2 year old celery and red chard - they hang out all year long!  You can't kill these plants!  Also growing some herbs, kale and lettuces in this bed.

"Ed's Millenium" tomato plant (not from seed)

Summer squash

Tons of baby limes!

The mandatory jalapeno...  Also growing an ancho chili...

Baby zucchini from seed...