In the Garden- May 2017

I harvested 2 of my napa cabbages on Friday. I weighed them and they were 7lbs which was pretty exciting after Cam texted me this picture. 

Yes that's 2.89 a lb. I like to save money!

Today, I made some kimchi in my new fermentation crock. It was so much easier than the jars that I have been using. 

 At the beginning of the month my tomatoes went in the ground.

 We took the row covers off and harvested the majority of the kale. It got blanched and frozen for soups in the winter.

 As we were picking Kian found this monster kale leaf. It was pretty fun.

 Dax is always having fun playing with our chicks.

 Here is the cabbage and peas in the garden.

And the small garden 1 month ago (beginning of April) and May 11th.

Planting progress and rainy weather!

We got 6 inches of rain so far this weekend and are expecting more tonight. I planted a few things in my garden and held off on others that I will plant on Monday.
Over the weekend I put in:
-basil
-flower seeds. (I thought this would be a good idea because I wouldn't have to water them. But they may have washed away since they got planted outside my garden fence, not in the level raised beds. I'll be interested to see where they pop up haha!)
-Green onions

I finally got to prepping my beds for tomatoes and peppers this weekend. It's been a cool and WET spring so I think planting them Monday will be perfect :)

 Kale- Lower photo, March 16th, Top photo, April 12th

 Red express cabbage, transplanted March 16th, above photo is from April 28th

 These are my kale and spinach pickings of the crop that grew over the winter. I had to harvest it all to prep for my potatoes.

 One days harvest of kale, onion, and cilantro. I ended up making kale taco salad for dinner. It was yummy.

 This is my healthy attempt at artisan bread. It is 50% rye and 50% whole wheat. I used a sourdough levain and it fermented 14 hours! Rye makes for a dense bread but it was actually pretty tasty.

 I had Cam show off the kale that was bigger than his head. I can't even remember what variety this is but as you can see it gets big!

 Cam surprised me one morning by going out to the local strawberry farm and picking berries for me *true love*. I made strawberry lemon jam. This is my favorite jam! I hope we are able to get more berries this year... I'm not sure how they will fare with the flooding.

 The bed on the right and top will get tomatoes Monday. The green already there is arugula, red, and green lettuce. Big square bed has potatoes in those trenches. With all the rain, the trenches were filling up. I hope the potatoes survive. Also, I have been having a major problem with cutworms. I think because I left the cover crop in so long, they hung out in there. I found and killed 2 worms and I ordered some diatomaceous earth to sprinkle around. I hope it helps because my lettuce is getting chopped off one by one.

 Daikon Radish

Cool season crops in and growing- More fruit plants too!

 I planted Daikon Radishes last week. I left in the rest of the cover crop until I plant squash in a few weeks.

Here are the radishes now- 1 week later. There is also some lettuce and in the back spinach here.

 Overwintered Kale and spinach

 The kale is going to seed, I was hoping to save some of the seeds but may not be able to. I'm harvesting these this week and planting potatoes here.

 March 16th I transplanted my cabbage. This is red express and Napa

 Another photo from March 16- Napa Cabbage- Lots of Kimchi in my future I hope!

Here is the red express cabbage- March 16th

Row covers are on now- March 27th

 Kale on the adjacent bed- March 27th

 Overwintered cilantro. The best way to plant it!  We get so much more because it doesn't go to seed as fast.

Blackberries are breaking dormancy.  Photo from April 1

Blackberry flower bud

 Hard to see here but I planted nanking cherries along the fence. They were mailed bare root and dormant. I'm very excited about them. Next to them we cleared the bike track since it didn't get used enough. I planted some peas and oats in rows there. They are not to eat but to build the soil since its pretty awful. (April 1)
I will be adding landscape fabric and mulch all the way down the fence on this side- about 5 or 6ft out.

 A few asparagus are popping up. I hoping the asparagus rust stays away this year. (April 1)

 Blueberries flowering out. They are very pretty.

Here is the smaller garden. Snap peas are along the fence. Napa cabbage under longer row cover. Broccoli under the other. I just planted some onions. I still need to plant the rest of the onions and leeks this week. (April 1)

Broccoli under row cover

 Strawberries coming up.

 Raspberry. When we first started I didn't have any other garden room and planted them on the outside of this garden. They have spread a lot and are now encroaching it!

 The little green sprouts in the picture are marigolds. This is one of the reasons why I love open pollinated plants, they reseeded and grew without any effort from me!

Napa cabbage under row cover now (April 1) Its hard to get a good picture. Before I got the row cover on they were attacked by flea beetles. Now that they are covered I think they died off and I don't see new holes on the leaves thankfully.

More raspberries

 Overall look at the larger garden

And the back half of it. 

New apple trees in the back! Arkansas Black and 2 Enterprise. Not pictured is a crab apple I planted outside the fence because it wasn't going to fit. The crab apple is for pollination. Along the fence is peas- the kind you shell. Or I should actually say the kind that I will be shelling :) Beans will follow peas once it warms up.

Chicks, seeds, and Cold Frames

 I potted up my little mini soil blocks into the bigger ones. This picture is from a
 few weeks ago- this is cabbage. Napa and the left and Red Express on the right.

 We got some more chicks! 5 Rhode Island Red, 2 Buff Orpington, and 1 Red Production. Last year we had 8 chicks. One ended up being a rooster so we gave it away, then 3 got eaten by predators. Now we are down to 4 hens. Hopefully this year we can keep more of our chickens alive. We have plans to build a legit chicken run on the back portion of our garden. I will share progress on that when it happens (which I hope is soon). The boys kept asking me if we are keeping our hens from last year, and the answer was yes. They are laying lots of eggs now yay!

 I put Cam to work building me cold frames so I could set out my cabbages early.

Here's the finished frame. I'm still waiting for the row covers to come in the mail :)

 After many failed attempts, I made my first successful artisan bread. The tricky part was I only wanted to use a sourdough culture as my leavening. I also wanted to create a bread that was not just white flour. This is 50/50 white and wheat.

The garden now. We had a dusting of snow!

My overwintered kale and spinach are picking up speed growing and we are harvesting some of that.
I planted my peas last Wednesday. I could have planted earlier but somehow I always get a ton of little projects going on and I get behind.

Seeds indoors right now:
Kale, Cabbage (Acclimating these to the outdoors this week)
Broccoli
Spinach
Mache
Onions
Flowers
A few herbs

Seed Starting

Once it comes time to start my seeds, time starts moving really fast because there is a lot to do!

In mid February I started my onion seeds. I just put them in these flats and as you can see the varieties are separated by cardboard.

 I also harvested the last of my parsnips this month. It was getting to hot and they were sprouting green again on their tops.

 Dax was a good helper digging out the parsnips.

 Trees and forsythia bushes are blooming already. This one is in front of our house. I think it's a bradford pear.

The start of some of my other seeds. I got a mini soil blocker to start my seeds, then you put the mini blocks into the larger ones. The soil blocker works really well for things that don't like to be transplanted. I love my 2inch soil blocker. I'm still trying to decide if I like the mini.