Veggie Treats

WE HAVE CROPS!!! Our garden just sort of exploded with veggies! The weather has finally turned hot and "summery" and I am pretty sure that the garden likes that a lot. We have enjoyed zucchini, peas, green beans, carrots and onions. All that work and planting in the spring was WORTH IT! Our kids love it too. They are so interested in the veggies that we pick and the pick them up an study them. We let them try them too. What a great learning experience!

We seem to have a live in visitor in the garden. A little rabbit seems to think that peas are delicious. I have heard that hair can stop them.... is that true??

~ Sarah

Huh? Weeds??

Sarah and I have been trying desperately to catch up on weeding this week, since we're both home with relatively normal schedules this week.

Recently while Sarah was weeding in the lettuce/salad greens she pulled up this. Huh? Is that a weed? Or just an overgrown radish? Our Radishes are at least ten rows away... How did that happen?

We're Back!

Sorry, blog friends! We haven't been around in a little while. Diana broke her ankle and I have been out of town and not feeling well so our blog took a little bit of a back seat for a while!

Our garden is growing a lot now. Our weather hasn't been the best here in NY- we have had tons of rain and cool temperatures most of the summer and well, our garden has suffered a bit. We have been able to harvest some lettuce and radishes- and even a small onion (that was delicious!) but nothing else has fruit on it yet. A lot of our plants are getting blooms now though, so that is comforting!....... I guess I am getting impatient! I want to bite though a crunchy green bean and fry up some zucchini! This is the hardest time of gardening! :)

Our cabbage leaves are being eaten by a brown beetle! Anyone have the problem? Do you know the name of any powder that we can put on them?? I am afraid they are going to be gone before harvest time!

I am going to try and get a picture of our garden this week.... our weeds are taking over so try and ignore that ;)

Happy gardening!

Our 1st Harvest!!

Salad Greens, pulled from our garden on July 7, 2009. Isn't it beautiful? :-)

Radishes picked from our garden on July 7, 2009. Aren't they lovely? :-)
The salad I made for my family for dinner...we ate the radishes out and gave the salad greens to the chickens...since it tasted like grass....whats up with that?

Vacation, Weeding and Growth!

I've been on vacation all week and haven't had a lot of time for our garden this week. While I've been having fun with my family, I've missed the garden (and Sarah!)!!

Sarah has been out in the garden weeding a bit this week, but I am simply amazed at how fast the weeds grow!! I just went out to take a look around and noticed all sorts of little weeds poking up! Sarah and I laugh a bit at ourselves, because we just can't let those weeds grow like some of our nearby friends, who it doesn't seem to bother.

The one night I could go out to the garden this week, Sarah and I hilled the potatoes that are really starting to take off! I don't see any new spouts this week, but I am hoping that we get a few more. Potatoes weren't on our list to plant this year, but a friend had extra and they were free, so we decided to go ahead and try them out, since we had the room.

Everything is really growing beautifully. We will soon need to set up the trellis for our peas, so I'd better get to work arranging that! :-) We did try to pick a radish, but they aren't ready yet, so we'll be waiting a bit longer. The green beans, most of the corn, onions, summer squash and zucchini are growing fantastically! I am not convinced with most of the cabbage and we were able to pick a bit of lettuce (picture to come!). We also planted more lettuce. The cucumbers (which I started inside) are my favorite, since I've known them since infancy..LOL! They look marvelous! Tomatoes and all but one pepper plant are doing well as well. I am not convinced with the melon and watermelon.

Our pumpkins and winter squash, the last things we planted are really starting to grow now! Those were the last things we planted and its sooooo exciting to have a full garden of plants! I did buy the pumpkin packet this year, but had saved the winter squash seeds from a squash I had bought at the farmers' market last year. Saving my own seeds was another one of those experiments I had really wanted to try. I hope to do more of this after this year. Does anyone have experience with this? We'd love to hear about it!

Carrots, potatoes and watering

Well, we have some carrot sprouts! Woo Hoo! They are cute and little like every other plant we've had! Our potatoes are really starting take off so tomorrow, we are going to hill them up. It looks like all of our watermelon has died and we only have a few melons left...we'll see if they can make it!!
Do any of you have advice on how often to water a garden? I have been doing some research on it and I was wondering if any seasoned gardeners out their had any tips! I have read that every 3-5 days is a good amount of time (weather and temperatures taken into account). I just don't want to starve the plants or over-water them... there is a reason I don't have many plants in my house....;)

Our Little Visitor

Diana and I have FINISHED PLANTING!!! It is so nice to have all the plants and seeds in the ground! Now all we do it watch and wait...oh, and weed... ;)

While we were weeding out our corn this week, we noticed some foot prints that didn't resemble ours or our little ones. It seems that we had a visitor to our garden. A deer! Our little friend walked through the corn, across the carrots and out of the garden. She- or he- didn't eat anything so hopefully she won't be back to nibble!!
Our potatoes are starting to grow. Once they get to be two inches tall, or so, we will hill them so that no potato is exposed to the sun. They would turn green and be potentially poisonous to us. We haven't seen any activity where the carrots are but, we have been told and have read that they take a LONG time to grow. Our lettuce doesn't seem to be thriving either. We may just replant that. We used some old seeds and that could be the problem.

Here is the final listing of what we have planted in our garden plot:

CORN- planted May 21
CABBAGE- planted May 22
LETTUCE- Planted May 26
CARROTS- planted May 26
PEAS- planted June 2
POTATOES- planted June 2
ONIONS- planted June 2
PEAS- planted June 5
RADISHES- planted June 5
SUMMER SQUASH- planted June 5
ZUCCHINI- planted June 8
GREEN BEANS- planted June 8
MELON- planted June 10
WATERMELON- planted June 10
TOMATOES -planted June 10- then REPLANTED June 17
CUCUMBERS- planted June 17
ACORN SQUASH- planted June 17
PEPPERS- planted June 17
PUMPKIN- planted June 17


That is quite the line up of fresh food! This coming week, we should be able to see if our radishes are ready to harvest! We can't wait to see!!