Now we're caught up....

Well, on blogging.  I feel like I'll never really be caught up with all the work that needs to be done outside.  I think that this is normal.  We worked on some projects this summer that were necessary.  We had some brush that needed to be burnt.  We had a Christmas decoration that had lived it's useful life, and needed to be taken down.  We had decluttering to do in the house.  And, the biggest project was holding a part time job this summer.  It sapped my time and energy.  So, Tim was left in charge of a lot of the gardening this year.  He was so good to help me out so much, with weeding and watering. 

The end of the month of July and the start of August is bountiful harvest time.  The fair marks the time of the year that there are some impressive things coming out of my garden.  The fair was a week earlier than normal this year, so my garden was still very green and waiting to ripen... but in the past couple of weeks, things are ripening and we're getting to enjoy our own fresh veggies!

The thing I'm proudest of this year are my onions.  Not only did I have some great green onions, my big onions have been getting big and are very plentiful!  I think that weeding does that to them.  I'm so excited when we grill up a basket of veggies, and I can cut up my own onion to put in with the yellow squash, peppers, zuchinni, and beans.  It's great!  I'm thinking that next year will demand six bags of sets instead of the three I got this year.  My favorite onion is the purple onions, so I'll think about how I want to allocate things next year.

I have a grow bag on the deck with a lush bed of lettuce growing in it.  For less than $1.00 (the cost of the seeds), I've had at least twelve salads.  I'm thinking about keeping this grow bag with lettuce in the house all winter long.  I'll just continue to add seed if it needs it. 

I spent a lot of time cleaning out the herb garden this year.  I think it's a little too much shade on this side of the house, so my herbs did alright, but not great.  I know for next year, now.  Also for next year, I know that berries aren't around for very long.  So, when it's time to pick them, I'd better get out there and do it.  Complicating matters this year were my berry pickers.  The kids came down with a horrible illness for an entire week this summer: right at prime berry picking time!  It was also a busy week for me at work, so I suppose that we'll just have to save the recipes that I got for next year. 

I'll leave you with my family's favorite side dish: grilled veggies!  Simple recipe.  Take whatever veggies you desire and cut into bit sized pieces. (Shown here: yellow squash, zuch, onion, green pepper).  Put all the veggies into a gallon sized plastic bag and drizzle with your oil of choice.  We use olive oil to support the Tunisian economy and keep our hearts healthy.  Toss with your favorite seasoning, which for us is whatever we have handy.  In this case, I used Tastefully Simple Garlic Dill Seasoning.  I also use the Pampered Chef grill basket so my veggies don't fly over the edge.  Delish!

Typical farmer...

I've been so coated with mud, dirt, and grime that I haven't had the time or the energy to blog for the last couple of months.  But, I've tried to do a good job taking photos.  So, the next two posts will be on the same day, but will be inspired by the past.

We finally completed a shade garden of sorts by the front door.  We spent $15 on dirt at the local landscape store.  Our friends lent us their truck and we ended up with a large load of black dirt.  It was so much work for Tim to rake and dig out all of the decorative stone and fabric, but it looks so nice now.  My parents got us a watering system (in payment for dogsitting!) and the plants in the front have never looked so great.  Neither have the weeds.

Before and After Photos of the front garden....
All photos taken approximately July 10th, 2011.

The turkeys are growing so big!  We have a medium white and a large bronze.  It's funny that the white was hatched first (by three days or so) yet it's the smallest of the turkeys.  The fluffy head has been replaced by an interesting texture of skin.  It's a face that only a mother could love:  



Lastly, the garden has been growing really fast.  I'm all about making excuses, so here is a big one.  I had flats of wonderful seedlings started in my dining room.  The weather warmed, the sun shone bright.  What stopped me from getting my little seedlings into the warm ground.  Well, our tiller was not working.  By the time the small engine repair place let us know that we no longer have a tiller, several weeks had passed.  Some thoughts for the future: Don't wait until spring to get your tiller fixed.  The small engine place gets really backed up :)  Other thoughts: Renting a tiller was a great money saver and the tiller worked really well.  It only took us a couple of hours to till both gardens.  By then, however, I was a little behind.  Thus, my plants are now a little behind.  I guess that I know for next year.  The strawberries were great this year.  Beans are starting, snap peas are almost ripe, and the garden is starting to fill out nicely.  Pictures follow:



Just a few updates....

I have some pictures that I took a couple of weeks ago, but it was so nice outside and I had so much work to do that I never updated my blog.  Therefore, I'll be doing two updates....
Watch for them, coming soon!

I can't believe it's been a little over a week!

I haven't blogged in about a week, so I thought I'd better take some pictures and document what I've been up to.  The huge project that we NEEDED to accomplish was "Project Turkey Pen."  Those things were smelling up my bathroom, and they needed to get outside.  They have now been out for two nights, and they seem pretty content so far.

This is my first attempt at uploading a video to my blog.  I thought that video of my turkeys happily roaming around in their house would be better than a picture.  We have two turkeys.  Peepers (formally known as Dot) and Fluff.  Fluff is really small.  I think that it might be a female.  Peepers is getting huge.  I'm pretty sure that Peepers is male.  He was doing some strutting this morning, and using his wings to herd Fluff around their "house."  I'm not sure if you call it a turkey coop, or what.  I think that after the amount of work that Tim has done making this little turkey house (which would convert nicely to a chicken coop) he might be a little more open to getting chickens in the future.  He keeps calling it a chicken coop, and said that if something happened to the turkeys, he'd let us get a little flock of chickens.

Our First Free Day of Summer

Of course, it wasn't totally free.  We had lunch plans and a couple of errands to run.  But, we also got a bunch of little chores done and I was able to run around the yard with my camera.  The plants are loving this heat.  I got six more tomatoes in the ground today and I weeded around some of my onions.  My goal is to weed around one kind of plant a day, so I can keep ahead of things.  Today was the day to weed around the red onions.  It looks strange from the house to have a bunch of green in the garden with a little patch of brown :)  I have a lot of work to do!

Yesterday we worked on trimming bushes.  I weed wacked around our front bushes.  I also trimmed some unruly bushes in the front.  As I was trimming them by hand, I noticed a little nest!  In the nest are four little blue eggs.  I was judging from the size of the nest and the size of the eggs that I had discovered a wren nest.  Sure enough, today when I went back to take a picture of the nest, a little wren flew into the tree and watched me closely.  So, I took a picture of the mom/dad, too. 

I got some lovely tomatoes in the ground today, and was setting up the sprinkler system when I noticed how large my strawberries are getting.  They are looking great!  The project for this morning, which Alex and Kenzie helped me with, was putting newspaper down as paths.  I've been saving paper for quite some time, and I had three huge bags full.  I spent an hour the other day shredding paper to mulch around my plants.  It's supposed to be perfect mulch.  The water gets through to the roots of the plants, but the light doesn't reach the weeds to help the germinated seeds grow.  Perfect!  I watered down my paper mulch and happily went on my way to the Pizza Hut buffet.....

When we returned, to our dismay, we found the paths and mulch blowing around in the garden.  I thought that wetting it down would make things "stick" in place, but I was wrong.  I'll try again a few times.

The strawberries are looking great!  The lemon mint is very healthy (plants for sale for $1 each!) and the tomatoes are starting to take off.  It's starting off pretty good!  Just a couple of critter casualties so far, but I think things are looking great!

Here We Grow!

Things are getting bigger here!  The turkeys are getting their adult feathers in and the birds in the houses are getting bigger and stronger.  We had three tiny bluebirds in one of our houses.  Today, we took an updated picture of the babies, but we couldn't tell how many of them there are.  I love the funky feathers above their eyes.  Here are the before and after pictures:

The strawberries have gone wild, and there are little strawberries all over in the garden!  Along with little green mulberries, little green blackcaps, and (most excitedly) little green apples!

Here are my little apples!  I didn't think that I would have any apples at all this year, because only one of my two trees blossomed.  I don't even have any crab apple blossoms.  However, I have these little apples on the only tree that did blossom.  I'm not sure how that happened!
I can't remember when the crab apple normally blossoms, but I kind of thought it was around this time of year.  But, it's doing nothing.  For the first time, I've only had a couple of tents to deal with from the tent worms.  We took care of them naturally this year, so I didn't have to worry about chemicals!


We have little corn sprouts popping up in the garden, though I think they are unhappy that I didn't water them.  It was supposed to rain three different days, and it didn't rain on any of them.... so my plants were waiting for the natural rain.  They would still be waiting!

Friday morning I got my front flower bed planted before school.  I was up at six and had the bed in the ground by seven.  18 wave petunias, 24 impatiens, and 2 gerbera daisies later, and I had a flower bed!  I don't like flowers because you can't eat them and they have no practical use, but I have to admit that it looks nice when people come to my house!  I have to get the pots for my deck planted, still.  But, I think I'll be able to do that tomorrow :)

I'm not able to upload pictures of the corn OR of my kids with a painted turtle.... but I'll try to do that on a different day.

The herb garden and I had a little chat today....

.... and it decided to see things my way, for a change.  I meant to take before pictures of the weedy herb garden.  In fact, I was going to take a picture last weekend.  But, I didn't get around to it.  I started weeding today, while waiting for a severe thunderstorm to arrive (that never came), and the thought crossed my mind that I should go inside to get the camera and snap a photo.  But, I know me.  I knew that the second that I entered the house, I would completely forget what I was supposed to be doing, and that garden would never get weeded.  So, I stuck with it and got rid of most of the weeds!  The last thing I need to do (until I need to weed again) is apply some fresh mulch.  There is still a patch of garden that I'm not sure about.  I have this mystery plant, and it might be a Zinnia that self-seeded from last year.  Does anyone have knowledge of Zinnia foliage that can help me out?  If it's a weed, I'll pull it.  But, I have a habit of pulling out viable plants, so I might just let it live for now.

This parsley self seeded from last year.  I have some that I started from seed in the dining room still, but this little plant is ready to be used, right now! It looks like it's pretty healthy.  I've decided that I want to make my deck pots a little more functional, so instead of JUST planting flowers in them, I'm going to mix herbs or vegetables in a pot with some flowers to add some color.  So, my pots will be functional and colorful. 

The blueberries are planted!  Four in a row!  Right now, they are just little sticks in the ground.  I still need to shred some newspaper tonight so I can mulch better around them.  I've been reading about shredded newspaper making great mulch, since the water can get through so the roots of the plant that you're mulching, but the weeds can't germinate because there isn't any sunlight that gets through.  So, I plan on mulching the entire garden this way.  Today I also planted some eggplant (THANK YOU Charlotte!) that I'll mulch around, too.  So, since a storm is coming and I'm tired out tonight, I'm going to sit inside shredding newspaper, three sheets at a time.

I got my onions planted today (yellow, white, and red!) and my pole beans in the ground!  Tim set the rest of the poles for the grapevine support.  I'll take a picture after we get the wire installed.  He also stepped on one of the vines.... again... same one... but it appears that it will survive. Hopefully next weekend we will FINISH the great grape project!

So, yesterday I spent TOO much time wandering around, taking pictures.  I won't share all my bird pictures I took yesterday, but I'll post a couple.  Also, we have LILACS on our bush this year.  It's been there for five years, and this is the first year we have some blooms.

Planting Day

We got a bit of a late start, but we had work to do!  I had sweet corn that needed to get in the ground, even if the weather wasn't the best for planting sweet corn.  We also got the snap peas planted.  We have many rows of corn (I lost count).  It takes up about a fourth of the garden, but it's the thing that Alex is most excited about.  He's even going to help me weed!  I've planted two kinds of snap peas, and plan on planting them every two weeks for a couple of months.

Tomorrow, we're going for the radishes after school is finished.  Most exciting, to me, was that we actually used some of the things that we've been growing!  First up, the rhubarb that got huge in the last week.  It was so big this weekend that I had to pick some and make some "stuff."  Tim is a very talented Rhubarb Crisp baker.  He has a batch in the oven as we speak, and it's smelling wonderful.  I also have rhubarb cut up and ready to make into Rhubarb Ice Cream Sauce.  Last year I made a really good rhubarb juice, but I can't find the recipe.  I think I got it online, so that's a task for me to figure out in the next week.

Can't wait to eat some Rhubarb Crisp tonight!  Maybe with some ice cream :)  As my reward for four hours of planting and asparagus harvesting.

Weather update: warmer temperatures are coming on Thursday! This means we can reclaim a lot of our dining room. It's where the plants are hanging out now....

Tiller to the Rescue!

Today is a sad day.  We called Rohde Sales and Service to find out how much longer our tiller will be.  Bad news.  The carburetor appears to need replacing, and the cost to do so is more than the tiller is worth.  This means that we need to take care of a 3,300 square foot garden by hand?!?  I don't think so. 

ACE Hardware to the rescue.  We called around and found the tiller we wanted to rent for only $36.  It's a big one.  Fast forward four hours, and the garden looks like it's ready for sweet corn and peas to be planted.  Yes, I know.  Some people have had them in the ground for four weeks already.  I'm always a little behind schedule.

 We started out a little slow.  It took a little time to get to know the tiller.  However, soon it was working like a charm!  It didn't take long for Tim to finish the big garden and move on to the little garden.  We didn't know how long it would take, so we were happy with our progress.

There will most likely still be lots of weeds in the big garden this year.  We couldn't believe how nice and rich the little garden's soil was.  It's pretty amazing.  It's dark and there are few weed chunks that we had to deal with.  My work has just begun in both gardens.  I need to weed around the garlic in the small garden.  Obviously, the sweet corn will be planted in the big garden, and I'm putting both bean trellis' in the big garden this year.  Easier to weed around with more space.  I also plan on weeding around the horseradish.  This is something that my grandpa left me (not even knowing that he would be leaving it to me) and I hope to actually dig and process some of it this year.  Tim and I will have some fun with it.... and I already know to use the food processor outside when preparing it.

 My two cold frames with the spinach are not looking too promising.  Not sure if the seeds were old or what exactly happened.  I'm not giving up hope completely.  You never know what might pop up.  If nothing shows up in a week, I'm going to plant some of my things from in the house out there. 
I have lots and lots of tomatoes that I need to get outside.  They are getting really big, and are starting to outgrow my lights.
My strawberries are getting really big, and I need to clean up their bed.  It won't take me long, and I might mulch around the pyramid bed again.

This beautiful little blossom is on my apple tree.  It's looking so nice, but I'm not seeing a single flower on our Honey Crisp tree.  I'm not sure how they are supposed to cross pollinate if there aren't any blossoms on one of the trees.  I might have to look into borrowing a branch from our friends and seeing if I can hand pollinate the trees.  I don't even know if you can do such a thing, but if this Honey Crisp tree refuses to bloom, I might get desperate!

The rhubarb is big enough to pick and eat now!  I'm cutting some up tonight to make Rhubarb Sauce.  I might freeze some right away, too.  It's nice to have some plants that can be processed right away, since later in the summer will be used on the other fruits and vegetables.

Lastly, we're waiting for a warm day to finish our grapevine supports.  The grapes have leaves starting now, so we're sure we didn't kill them off next year.  I already mulched around them with shredded paper and added some straw to the top.  The picture of one of our little buds is near the top of the page.  I'm still trying to figure out how to best move pictures and text around to get things to look nice.

Can't wait to see what we get accomplished tomorrow!  Forecast for tomorrow is cold and rainy, again.

Cherries and Rhubarb and Phlox; Oh My!

We got home from school today, and I immediately noticed the cherry tree down by the small garden.  WOW!  Something happened in the last couple of days! Instead of telling you about it, I'll show you! Everywhere I look, I see growth and change.  I love it!

 

Attack of the Seedlings!

Wow.  My husband and his dad deserve a huge pat on the back.  The grow stand has been a huge success, and my flats are loving the new artificial light.  They worked for an entire DAY designing and making a stand for my little seedlings.  I think that this option is even better than a greenhouse, as I won't have to worry about overheating, wind, or venting.  I have the greatest husband and father-in-law!

The dining room just did not give us enough light and my seedlings were very.... lame.  This year, I have stocky little seedlings that look like they are ready to be planted, TODAY!  I'm not giving in to the urge for two reasons:
1) We don't have the tiller back from the shop
2) It's Wisconsin.  We know what happens when we try to plant at Mother's Day.  Dead cucumbers.

I'm thinking about taking some of my extra plants (I have a TON of tomatoes) and getting them in the ground this weekend.  That's right; rain or shine.  If they freeze and die, so be it.  I'm not really out anything.  If they make it, AWESOME!  I'm ahead of the game :)  I'm also hoping to get my sweet corn in the ground.  This is a new project for us.  I sure hope that Tim isn't kidding when he offered the dig the garden (again) by hand.  It might need to be done.  We also bought the concrete so we can finish up our grapevine supports.  It just means we'll have another busy weekend!

I still have to find a place to plant my beautiful blueberry bushes.  The pressure is on.  It needs to get done this weekend! 

Finally! Spring!

High of 63F and a chance of rain.  It's beautiful outside, so I took advantage of the nice weather to walk around, take some pictures, and make some plans.  The bluebirds are finding the new houses we built for them.

So, my first project was starting to take out an old, dying bush from the area near the front door.  I hate this area.  The lava rock that was put there is failing, the landscaping fabric is failing, and it looks awful.  I'm toying with some different ideas.  Possibly a mini-prairie kind of thing with prairie inspired perennials?  I don't think we'll be able to come up with the money to redo all the rock this year.  Any ideas?  The person that comes up with a great idea I can't refuse will get a prize from me!

The spinach has started peeking through the dirt in my cold frames.  One of the two has more sprouted, so it must have been the faster germinating of the two variations that I planted.  There was a ton of nature outside today.  The animals must feel the same itch to get outside when it's nice out.  I glanced out the window and there was a beautiful male oriole sitting on the tomato cages that we use to protect our little saplings from my maniac mowing mother.  On the neighboring cage sat a male bluebird.  A lot of color in just a few feet.  By the time I got new batteries in my camera, the bluebird was gone and the oriole had moved to the tree.  But, before I went back in the house in complete defeat, a beautiful doe looked both ways and crossed the highway.  Can't wait to see all the things I can get accomplished this beautiful afternoon!

A most productive day...

Today, we woke up with a huge list hanging over our heads.  That's not a good feeling to have.  But, we loafed around for about an hour and waited for inspiration.  And, it came.  We got off our butts and the productivity began. 

First was a trip to town.  We went to Tractor Supply (nails and dogfood), Edgewater Greenhouse (a dahlia), Walmart (batteries), Culvers (two free scoops of ice-cream and a basketball), and the Library (too many books and two turkey books).  It only took us an hour!  That's including the time it took the kids to eat their ice-cream.

We got home and got right to work.  Alex read a book when I finished the six birdhouses. Tim already has them hung up!

Tim made me some awesome cold frames which I planted spinach in today.  We have two of them, so I was able to plant two different types of spinach today.

Mackenzie filled up pots and got them ready for my major transplanting project.  I was able to get my cabbage and my tomatillos transplanted tonight.

Though we started out the day feeling like we'd get nothing done today, we ended up being really productive.  Now to tackle those books about raising turkeys! It's one of my next projects.