May 25, 2015

So, here's our garden update for the week!

Ed's Millennium going strong...

Ed's Millennium full of tomatoes! 

Baby Summer Squash! 

Our seedlings are still so tiny!  Will they ever be big enough??  Starting to worry... 

Two different types of zucchini here, both have lots of babies! 

Baby zucchinis on the Dark Star plant we started from seed... 

Baby zucchinis on the other plant... 

Cucumbers... 

Wee little cucumbers... 

Another summer squash.  This is the plant that has a lot of aphids and the plant is stunted.  This squash will probably be inedible. 

First cherry tomatoes coming in... 

Another view of the Sweet Million cherry tomatoes... 

So, this was supposed to be a Jalapeno plant but who knows what kind of peppers these are? 

We've got collards, kale, lettuce, broccoli, gold beets, parsley and spinach in here... 

Our chard has seen better days.  We're going to cut it all down and hope for the best. 

Close up of gold beets... 

Grapes! 

More tomato seedlings... 

Figs! 

Limes! 

Volunteer Tomatillos...  We will be relocating these. 

Our very small Blackberry "bush" 

May 15, 2015

So, we were gone on vacation for 10 days and this is what we came home to!

Grapes getting bigger...

Spinach exploded!

Beets starting to emerge from the soil...

Collards blew up!

Where did this zucchini come from!?!?  Was not there before we left...

Another shot of the same zucchini plant...

Cucumbers grew significantly and now have blossoms.  The plant on the far right now has a baby cucumber growing on it...

Summer squash plant now has a few squashes growing but this plant is loaded with aphids so they are stunting its growth.  :(

Sweet Million grew a foot!

Baby cherries now growing on Sweet Million plant!

This other tomato plant grew over a foot and now has a few baby tomatoes on it!

This Summer Squash plant now has two baby squashes growing!

Tomatillo plant now has blossoms!  Did not get much taller, though...

Baby jalapenos now growing!

Enchanted celery forest appeared!

Ingredients from our garden (and chickens) about to make us a delicious breakfast.  -Like printing your own money!

Close up of our beautiful spinach freshly harvested. <3

April 25, 2015

Just wanted to report a few things today...  Chris transplanted our broccoli that never got a chance because twice our chickens took it down to the stalks...  Well, it has come back a third time so we decided to do an experiment and move it to a shady part of the bed and see what happens.  (pic) 

Baby spinach is so adorable I had to take a picture of it...  (pic)

Check out how many little summer squashes are already on this plant!  And the plant is still a baby!  (pic)

And check out how fast this chard came back after our chickens took it all down to stems last month!  (pic)

And last but not least, the newest addition to the garden, this little red bell pepper plant.  (pic) Scored it at Whole Foods for $2.50!

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...