http://cellar.org/2005/garden2-1.jpg

The beans and peas really like the wet weather and have gone into serious production mode.

http://cellar.org/2005/garden2-2.jpg

Cauliflower and zucchini

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Carrots are ready to be thinned out.

http://cellar.org/2005/garden2-4.jpg

At this point they have a light orange hue, and if you break them in half they smell like carrots. Which is what they are.

Boy, are you gonna have to do some serious zuchinni training. Those suckers will trail a long way.

You better start lining up your adoptive zucchini parents now, UT ... you will reach a point where everyone you know has zucchini from your garden, or has been gifted with a variety of zucchini products from your kitchen.

It's not just about you. Everyone plants too many zukes. I don't know why it works that way. It may have something to do with the hotdog/bun conspiracy, but I haven't fully worked out the connection.

Just remember that the zucchinis taste better when they are smaller. More tender that way. Don't wait until they are the size of footballs before you pick them. It's easy to forget this point.

I really want to try eating stuffed zucchini blossoms this year. I'll see if I can find the recipe that I was eyeing... That'd get a jump on your bounty.

I don't see any honeysuckle that looks like this and grows one or two blossom per stem about 1.5 ft high. No vine or bush or clusters. :confused:

<a href="http://www.pfaf.org/leaflets/flowers.php">It looks like they're edible.</a> Honeysuckle is, too, but I don't think you can confuse 'em.

Bruce, I ate a columbine. Thought of you. kinda sweet, but not nectary. (er..the flower) :)

Of course the flower, I'm nectary as hell. :blush:

FYI
That was a very columbine looking dwarf honeysuckle there.

Last week we hosted Elfin Bedwe'er's playgroup and some of the moms decided to get all "back to the land" and started nibbling tall volunteers from the paths between the raised beds.

Later inb the day, I'm weeding and I get a "What's this? We ate some of it and we thought it tasted pretty good and we should put it in a salad mix."

Weeell, that is a shasta daisy. Right next to it is a foxglove. Don't be eating things you don't know anymore, 'cause I ain't gonna be a single dad nursing no toddler.

http://cellar.org/2005/g0605a.jpg

J and I put up a little leaning chicken wire wall for the beans and peas to climb.

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The pole variety of bean grows a large stalk very quickly. The stalk twirls a little so it automatically weaves its way into the chicken wire.

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The peas have little tendrils that reach out and, when they find something, they wrap tightly wround it. Half of them have found the chicken wire. Once they wrap, the tendrils can't be undone... they wrap tight. Some garden weasel, probably the local rabbit, has started eating these leaves. It must die. But since I won't kill it, we will be putting up more chicken wire as fencing.

http://cellar.org/2005/g0605d.jpg

Left to right, carrots, zucc, cauliflower. Yes the zucc is growing right massive immediately, and we have taken one out, leaving us with two plants.

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The corn has begun, and we will thin it next week.

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Proud Jacquelita

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Proud UT

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Proud Jacquelita and UT together not in a garden.

You two are honorary hicks. You'll have to get some bib-overalls or some Amish duds.
Oh and good luck with the bunny, although they usually don't just nibble the edges. Might be an insect or snail.
You could plant some orange columbine for him. :lol:

Marigolds are supposed to be a good bunny deterrant, but I think you'd do better to invest in a bottle of coyote urine.

I'm not sure what Pearl and Bean will think of it, though.

So that pose that Jacquelita is striking....
Is there something you'd like to share UT ?

All precautions have been taken against undue pollenation...!

Overnight, two of the bean stalks reached the top of the mesh. Now that whole "jack and the bean stalk" thing makes much more sense. In under two weeks they grew four feet!

Silent, I was thinking the same thing :D

My parents used a live trap to catch and remove unwelcome diners from their garden. I used to love to go with them and drop off the bunnies at a roadside park about 10 miles from our house. live traps for varmints

Those zucchinini leaves are huge...

I dunno bro, all this gardening looks like nesting behavior to me.

Beautiful work guys! I do however reserve the right to resent your superior growing season down there.

That's just a bad habit of mine when having a picture taken. Sort of a sub-conscious effort to hide the belly. Not that it works - In fact it draws attention to it (doh!)

It's funny, my sister made a comment about me holding my belly right after she took the picture...

I thought it just looked like you were laughing really hard.

What a lovely farmin' couple! You look proud and happy!

I think I am suffering from pea frame envy.
We have ours on a fence but want to build some sort of vertical supports for the zuchini and beans. And we best get crackin!

So far we've enjoyed one rhubarb pie and two rhubarb crisps, some good baby greens salads with the teeniest little radish thinners. We've had a cool wet spring, so the greens are great.

Its also been a bumper year for morels. I've been fascinated to meet two separate individuals that are huge, morel hunters. Like fishing, they have their particular hot spots...I never knew it was even going on!

You can see the sophisticated wire-tie-wrap method of construction that we used!

I took those pictures two days ago and the bean stalks have now reached the top of that frame. They are so fast! I tried to train them not to climb any higher, but they won't have any of it.

Sister? :love:
Hell, you might as well herd cats. Lucky to keep them out of the house.

In case anyone else is too shy to say it, I think I should just point out that Jacquelita is hot.

We'll be needing to see a pic of your sister for comparative purposes, though. We wouldn't want to fix Bruce up without due process... :lol:

I second the first part Griff. But you're crying on the wrong shoulder when it comes to short seasons. Our Average Last Frost was memorial day! Peas are up and so is the first round of spinach. Some squash seedlings just were put in today. All told we've got 114 days before it's all over. 30 below in the winter. (zone 4)

I'm trying parsnips this year.

Yes, Jacquelita is hot.

I just spent hours weeding our garden. Our plants are not nearly as nice as yours look. I think the weeds are starving them.

I think the overabundance of weeds is probably due to either a. we want to go organic with this stuff, so we haven't used any chemicals. and or b. We used cow manure for fertilizer (because of our desire to go organic) and cows eat things that have seeds, therefore there might have been seeds of weeds in the manure. Ugh. We also have a huge upcropping of Jerusalem artichokes from the last year and I don't know how to get rid of some of them without digging with a spade. Back to it tomorrow, I guess.

Awe thanks 'spode (and Case)! I'm blushing... :blush: (UT calls me Hot Mama sometimes :p ) I think it's funny!

Sorry XOXO my Sista is seriously married (20 years). But if things suddenly go south, you'll be the first to know :D

Thank you. :heartpump
You know, at my age "going south" is considered a good thing, as in FLA for the winter.

Resist the roundup. For weeds, or to make a new bed, you can spade the dirt, turn the greens under, put down 3-4 sheet layer of newspaper, cover with soil, compost, then chips to hold it down and make it not butt ugly. you can plant right through the paper. the paper, greens will feed the bed. Some tough weeds you just haveto dig out, then mulch well to keep them pullable and learn to live with in moderation. But organic is worth it. If you have some funky diseased plants, leaves, pick, remove, and dont compost.

I'm battling prairie grass. massive roots. I'll post a pic when I get it together. This weekend is a big farm work session.

and foot! Zone 4 represent! We best get crackin.

I posted the last beanstalk picture four days ago. Since that time it has grown 15" above the top of the frame! We had a soaking storm followed by 90 degree temps.

UT my beans have grown over a 5 ft. concrete reinforcing wire that I have on metal post and on way back down. If rain lets up will post a few photos of my garden, but Arlene is in the Gulf and may drop by with more rain.

I am so jealous of people with gardens. I can't even grow dirt properly in my current setting.

Here's a few photos of my garden. http://www.flickr.com/photos/busterb/

Here are some photos from a few weeks before last frost. (mid april)

My Protegé, Elfin Bedwe'er, demonstrating his bed leveling technique.
The chicken wire keeps the neighborhood cats from availing themselves of the facilities, as it were. It comes up after the plants get established, or in some cases after seeding, then it is replaced by floating row covers.

Behind me is 6x6 remesh. The ultimate in pea fencing, cuke trellis, or tomato cages. I'll show more pictures when I get them.

Elfin B is almost fully trained to collect rocks and load up the dump truck. He is a liitle shaky on the whole "let's move them to the rock pile" part of the program, but he shows promise.

Also you need to keep him on task, sometimes he thinks that seedlings and tomato plants need to go in the truck too. That's when we call in the enforcer, SWMBO.

Why is there razor wire in your backyard? Are you growing something valuable? :fumette:

Buster's property backs up onto a prison.

Great pics, foot. You're serious! Floating row covers, eh?! Posh.
The community veggie plot I work on just this weekend got some donated cukes, tomatos, cabbages, brussels sprouts and peppers. We're a little more rustic (and less effective) in our arrangements and critter barriers. I'll try for some pics. The harvest goes to our neighborhood seniors org, and all that they want are tomatoes and more tomatoes.

That dump truck pic is ridiculously cute.

The first zuke has arrived. It's so cool! The first sign of a yellow squash is now happening as well. I would have more pics but I can't find the batteries for the camera!

Honey...

I think I have them

I got the row covers through Fedco (www.fedcoseeds.com) check the organic growers supply section. 250 feet of 83" wide row cover was only 37 dollars. It seemed a better alternative to losing my entire cuke crop (like last year) to the evil striped cucumber beetles.

They gave the cukes bacterial wilt in fifteen minutes. I set the seedlings out to harden off, I went in the house to get a cup of coffee, came back and they were covered in beetles. I maybe got ten pounds of cukes from eight plants.

Not again.

Each year I meet a new critter, and each year I figuratively close the barn door after the horse has fled.

It keeps me off the streets, as my dad used to say.

I'll pass on what little I've learned about home gardens. In a small spot only plant determinate plants, as the indeterminate plant will grow out of any cages you put around them, they will grow over a 4 ft. cage and fall over. This pertains to tomatoes. In a few weeks I'll post a photo about this at above link. Beans you have no control over unless you plant bush type. Most places you buy plants aren't marked as being determinate or not. Bonnie plants sucks about this. I planted some winter squash, butternut, one year they tried to take the whole garden and yard. Couldn't give them away as the rednecks around here don't grow them. :smack:

http://cellar.org/2005/garden4-1.jpg

TEN DAYS since the last set of pics and look! Look at the change!

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First zucc!

http://cellar.org/2005/garden4-3.jpg

Yellow squash forming!

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The peas have begun a fight with the beans that they cannot win.

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Bounty!

Yum! We're about 2-3 weeks behind.

Ouch. I have a 1" red stripe of third degree burn across my lower back from the sun. I was out working in the garden last Sunday, beautiful here, and sunscreened my entire uncovered person. I didnt realise that when hunched over, my shirt road up enough to expose a bit of my back above the waistband. No tattoo there, but maybe it will be come the trendy new farmer tan. Still stings, waiting for the itchiness, then the peel. ick. I definitely know the sunscreen works. The rest of me was fine.

Warch,
Is that the gardener's version of "plumbers crack"?

It a little higher and horizontal...but yeah.

UT said Bounty!

Oh shit !!! tHAT DOESN'T WORK DOES IT ??????!

It was nice to see Pearl helping in the garden, checking to see if there are any spots that need watering, or perhaps finding a place to dig a hole for some new seeds!

Okay all you homebody gardeners types - I just have to say it. I"m so glad my days of love affairs with dirt and my own homegrown veggies have given away to sailing. What I used to invest in labor and supplies I can save 3/4 and get all the organic veggies I want at the local farmer's market or Fresh Fields and not be tied to my own back yard.

Sailing is too much work! I paid Celebrity Cruises to sail me to Bermuda, and they did it in style with massive gourmet meals and events and games and a casino and jacuzzis and stuff.

If you are good at it, it isn't too much work. The boat does most of it.

But that's how I feel about the garden! Nature does most of it, all we did was to build something to frame it, and that was easy.

I know, I got it. It's just that I used to do that too until I realized exactly how much I was paying for those tomatos (had to get someone in to till it first thing in the spring and onward from there but I had a 50'x50' garden and tried to grow way too much stuff). Now I don't even have a yard.

Well Jacquelita would like to get a boat too, but one thing at a freakin' time :D

You know, they say that the two happiest days are the day you buy your boat and the day you sell it. :)

BWAHAHAHAHHAAHA!

It is also said that a boat is a hole in the water you throw money into.

I'm told that there's an aptitude test: Go dress up in your best clothes, go to the bathroom and get in the shower. Step in and turn it on full blast, full cold. Now reach into your pocket and pull out hundred dollar bills one at a time and tear them into pieces and let them fall to the floor and down the drain. Repeat.

Yeah but there isn't the pain when you sail on your bf's boat <g>

I don't have to pay for it or clean it or all the other nonsense!

One of those little pontoon deals doesn't look like that much work...

pffft - sail boat!

Yeah my sailing days are over. I sailed from Seattle to Ketchican in November, so I can attest to BigV's comments. Only I'd add it's more like burning the hundreds to keep a cigar lit. Same diff.

Also, having been in two hurricanes at sea, I'll take my chances on land, in a storm, any day.

Besides while gardening I can focus all my sublimated anger and frustrations at the cucumber beetles. Excuse me, I meant to say the filthy bastard cucumber beetles.
:rar:

UT and I enjoyed the first bounty from our garden. Fresh carrots and a zucchini boiled and served with a little butter and salt. There is truly something wonderful about eating fresh fare that comes from your own garden.

The carrots and zucchini were served as a delightful side dish, accompanying a beautiful cut of steak (broiled to medium-rare perfection) and delicious mashed red skin garlic potatoes.

We also enjoyed a wonderful old Cabernet Sauvignon that UT had been hiding away. All served in romantic candlelit splendor. A truly memorable meal.

My man sure knows how to treat me right! I expressed my sincere appreciation for his thoughtfulness later that evening... :p