The Gardens

In spite of the challenges of this season (and there are many), we have had some successes in our gardens. We have a healthy field of beets and chard with several different varieties to choose from. We also have a couple squash patches that - so far - are doing really well. There have been some signs of major squash bug infestation, but we have done a lot of squishing over the past few weeks and hope to get a good crop out of them.
We have one patch with both butternut and spaghetti squash. The butternut plants look great, while the spaghetti squash plants are struggling a little. Both, however, are loaded with squash so hopefully we will get some ripe ones before the bugs take over!
A butternut squash just starting to ripen: An unripe spaghetti squash: An almost ripe spaghetti squash: A small buttercup squash - these are super sweet and flavorful, we are crossing our fingers extra for these: Some unripe New England Pie pumpkins: We planted the summer squash late in hopes that it would miss the first round of squash bugs. So far so good, they are just starting to produce and the plants are looking good. A tiny patty pan squash with the flower still attached. Kind of looks like a pastry doesn't it? Some rows of sauce tomatoes: Aside from a little blossom-end rot, our tomatoes are doing really well! This is a sauce tomato called Speckled Roman. It will have red and yellow zebra stripes: These are classic Roma sauce tomatoes: It's almost time to pull out all the canning jars!

Ok, we did briefly with a bumper crop of cucumbers...26 jars of pickles: 10 bread and butter, 16 dill. :)

Hopefully we can keep going!

The High Tunnel (Greenhouse)

As things ripen in our jungle of a high tunnel, we are finding all kinds of crazy things. We've had a ton of cucumbers come out of four short rows as well as a good crop of these tiny sour gherkin cucumbers.












Their vines are so pretty, they would work really well in an edible landscape. We have been getting gobs of cherry tomatoes: honeydrop - a new variety for us, and SO delicious. Peacevine, a small red cherry, and also a large purple cherry.
We've also had a great crop of early Cherokee Purple tomatoes - yum!
With tomatoes come pests, the most shocking is probably the tomato horn worm:
They start out small and eat both the leaves and the tomatoes. They seem to be partial to the cherries, they eat about half of each green tomato and them move on to the rest of the branch. They are voracious eaters and they grow fast...and they get huge! This one was larger than my index finger - yikes! They are camouflaged really well, so you don't see them until they are right under your nose. We used to be freaked out by them, but to tell you the truth, I have kind of come to like them. Aside from eating the plants (a pretty hefty offense) they are really cool! They have interesting markings and cute suction cup feet. Their season has mostly past, and I can't say that I'll miss them, but at least I don't jump ten feet every time I see one anymore. :)

Just Picked!

Some of the goodies from the garden:

Nasturtiums

Herbs

Cucumbers

Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumbers (These are an awesome snack, but are not the same ones you pickle.)

They look like tiny watermelons.

Red Onions

Yellow Onions

Fresh Garlic

New Potatoes

Yum!

A Visitor From Chicago

One of Shawn's closest friends from college, Rebecca, came to visit us this past weekend from Chicago. We had so much fun! It felt like we were all over the place, but we managed to take her on a tour of a lot of our favorite places. She came with us to our Saturday market in Westminster. Definitely one of our favorite places. Later that night, we visited Scott's farm, Sattva Place. Unfortunately we forgot the camera this time and don't have any photos of his magical and beautiful farm. We visited with his heard of cows, his baby goats, his boar and sow, his horse Darla and her foal, his flocks of chickens and turkeys, and the trillions of lightening bugs who appear at dusk. As usual, we had a wonderful time sharing a meal and a bonfire with Scott and his adorable dog Yindi.
Next, we headed over to see Abby and Daniel and their goats. We hung out in the barn with the babies for quite a while.

Rebecca got to give them a special treat, and they were loving it!

Shawn's turn to give them a treat.


They are super playful, they love to climb and jump. If you give them a good place to climb, climb they will.



After we ate dinner and came inside, we laughed our way through an impromptu jam session on instruments none of us knew how to play.

The next day we got up and put Rebecca to work. Weed, water, mulch, repeat. We tackled the beets, some of the potatoes and onions, and the garlic.

The garlic and onions after they've been weeded, watered, and mulched:
We ate several good farm meals while she was here. At Scott's we had a delicious fritata made with eggs and milk from his farm, and veggies from our friend's farm. We brought a salad with our cucumbers, lettuce and onion. On our big work day, we had beets, beet greens, new potatoes, and cucumber salad with garlic chives and cherry tomatoes (from the high tunnel).

For pizza night, we made a salad with lettuce, cucumber, and nasturtiums:

We had such a great weekend - hopefully we can get out to Chicago to visit this fall!

Colorado Potato Beetles

The last few weeks have been virtually rainless. It's tough on the plans and tough on us! We have been watering as much as possible and are upgrading our system from last year with a pump and soaker hoses. It will make it a lot easier. (And hopefully faster.)

Because most of our plants are somewhat thirsty they are also a bit weakened and therefore more susceptible to pests. One of the worst infestations we have right now is the Colorado potato beetle. We have spent many hours picking, plucking, squishing, and smashing these guys and it seems to be working!

Here I am after 3 hours of potato beetle duty in 100 degree heat:

Anyway, most of our plants remain healthy. They have started to bloom and their small white and purple flowers are so pretty.


Unfortunately, each row has a few plants with beetles. Here is what we've found:


This is the larvae just after hatching. They come out of a little cluster of yellow eggs. Not so gross right? If you rub your thumb across them a couple times it pretty much wipes them out.

This is them when they get larger - yuck! I will spare you the details of what it is like to squish them. You can see all the damage just from these three buggers. They get huge so fast, you can see the difference when you compare them to my hand in both pictures.

And then finally the adult. We don't end up seeing too many adults, but when we do find them, we also find eggs somewhere in the vicinity.

They don't multiply super fast which is why we have managed to stay ahead of them. But don't let it fool you. They are voracious eaters. Here is a healthy plant with no beetles:

Here is a plant we overlooked:
Unbelievable right?

I think this guy is confused...

Although it is frustrating, we are not alone in our potato beetle battle! We have some friends keeping tabs when we aren't around. Like the two-spotted stink bug:
Not all stink bugs are bad, these are predatory stink bugs and suck the insides right out of the potato beetle larvae! Gross, yes, but also great.

We also saw a few of these, they too love to feed on potato beetle larvae:
They are called Assassin Bugs...yes...such a good name.

Lady beetles will feed on potato beetles, but we haven't seen as many of those. I think they are all in our high tunnel eating our aphid population. They have kept really good control in there.

Hopefully we will continue to keep our potato beetle population under control, so far so good!

A Few Goodies From the Garden

I thought I would share a few items from the garden. Here are the latest picks:

Fresh Herbs: sage, thyme, dill

Garlic Scapes: the flowering stalk of the garlic plant. It has a mild garlic flavor. Yum!

Giant Snow Peas: sweet and crunchy!

Spring Onions

We really could use some rain - everyone, please do your ran dance! Then we can share more pictures of delicious produce. :)