Garden Harvest and getting there...

These are some of the Cherokee Purple I've harvested.  They are delicious and are my second favorite for flavor and the plant produces a lot of tomatoes that are especially large.  This one weighed 1.2 lbs and the one to the right that you can sort of see was 1 lb.

I took photos tonight because it's Sunday and I don't work in my garden on Sunday.  I did walk around and look at it. 

Bell Peppers starting to get big.

 Cayenne Peppers

Cherokee Purple on the vine - splitting because I changed the water schedule again.

 Early Elberta peach tree

Small Early Girls

 Jalapeno

Melon

Big Daddy onions drying

Red Beef Steak

 My garden tonight

 Spirit Bush Pumpkin

Garden Update

I don't know if we'll ever get this front flowerbed finished.  I have big plans.  Simple plans really, but big impact.  So I stuck a few extra cabbages in the front since it's not happening this year. My son was so excited to pick this cabbage. 

 He felt so accomplished.

These are Hungarian Partridges. We have had a large flock here for a few weeks.  They like to sit in my garden when the sprinklers are on in the grass.

 Another cabbage.

My corral bells are blooming.

And more pumpkins are turning orange.  I already have 5 inside.  We'll see how long they last.

And a flock of little grey birds with yellow fronts are fertilizing my garden for me for FREE! They love sitting on the empty trellis and well, they sound so pretty and they quit hitting the living room window so they can stay.

My big Daddy Onions are almost ready.

And these crappy cages are not tall enough or strong enough.  

These cherokee purple are getting huge.  Last week I picked 1 at 1.2 lbs and another at 1 lb.

And this cage bit the dust, literally. 

My husband stained the beams on the front of our home.  He also bought 2 4x4 beams that are 8 feet tall for our grape vines.  My daughter decided to stain them.  I know all about the leaching into the soil stuff but by the time these things produce any grapes, my daughter will probably be in college.  Our soil is terrible.

My son thought it was great to climb on the propane tank (because that's something we never let them do).

This is how big one of the vines is after 4 years.  The other two are half the size.

Some of the flowers out front are so pretty.  I really need some blooming fertilizer for the rest.  

The beams look so pretty after being stained.  What a difference!

Now I'm going to go work on a project with my Silhouette Cameo ... for Halloween ... it involves black vinyl.  yay!

Night out Against Crime and Life Flight takes the center stage

It was fun to see Life Flight come in and land.  Unfortunately it wasn't grandpa.  He actually relieved this crew the next morning.  But it was still fun to see.  And it was funny to here the nurse say, "Oh I KNOW EXACTLY WHERE YOU LIVE! We fly over all the time." And by that she means, 'we fly nice and low right over your house so you can come running out and wave at Grandpa'.

My son peaking in.

My daughter peaking in and telling her cousin next to her all about how cool her grandpa was to teach her all about it.

Did you know this is the only CIVILIAN operated hoist in America?

Well, now you do.  My Dad worked hard to get it and they have saved many lives with it.  Check out one rescue HERE - and yes, that's my dad flying. I don't know how my mom sleeps at night.

Catching up - Canning

I'm behind on posting but this is from the 8th of August. This is the second picking of the jade bush beans and the first pick of the wax beans. 

 I filled my entire deep stainless steel sink with jade bush green beans.  They weighed in at 14.8 lbs

And these yellow wax beans weighed in at 6 lbs. Honestly, I won't grow them again.  The jade bush gave me 3 pickings and these wax beans barely gave me a full picking before going dry. And they're tougher. 

I packed the jade bush in bags since I wasn't sure I was going to be able to can all 21 jars that day.  I DID get all 21 jars canned completely.  My pressure canner holds 7 quart jars.

Here the wax beans are getting blanched before adding them to the jars. 

Here are some of the jars sitting in the canner.  I wanted to see if I could get a pic of the rolling boil and yep, you can kind of see it.

14 jars cooling off with the last 7 in the canner.

Weekend Harvest

I harvested the tomatoes today.  I was craving something at about dinner time so I went to see if there were any tomatoes ready.  The early girls were looking good but as many were eaten by birds as I harvested.  I think I need netting.  And the Cherokee Purple were ready.  I ate 5 at dinner.  Don't worry, I offered to share but no one likes them.

These two bright red bumpy lumpy tomatoes are red beef steak tomatoes.  They are the smallest tomatoes on the vine. The rest are really big.

The cherokee purple really have a different color but are really tasty.  I loved them.

Some of the early girls are not quite ready but I brought them inside to get to them before the birds do. 

I picked a few carrots for snacks.  

And I roasted some crook neck squash seeds for Kiwi.  275 degrees for 15 minutes. Not what I expect but I added a little Emeril's seasoning and scarfed them down myself. I can't wait to roast some squash for dinner tomorrow.

Kiwi ate the squash guts for a little while.  Then I placed it outside for the wild birds.

Harvest Monday - garden update

The heads of the big daddy onions that went to seed are just about ready for harvest.  I'm going to try planting the onion seeds this fall and see how that goes.  If not, I have plenty of onion seeds to spare.  

These are not the same onions - these I started in January indoors, but they are still big daddy onions. 

  Onions in the square foot garden

 Looks like something from a Dr Suess picture.

  cabbage in the shade garden.  The rest of the plants didn't grow up around it - some kind of spiny orange weed with no leaves killed them.

My first cherokee purple ever.  This week I will cut the water in half to promote red tomatoes.

I don't think I'll actually harvest anything from here this year.  Cantelope and lemon cucumber.

Cabbage from the square foot garden.

Peaches.  Last year we got 3 peaches. This year I've already thinned it some so I don't get broken branches.  

Early girl tomatoes

The birds have been pecking them - as always.

Needed some more support for the tomatoes.  This photo is pretty impressive because it's the first time he's stepped in the garden since oh, I can't remember.

 The sky was gorgeous!

The mountains are so dry!

The garlic is out and almost cured.

The basil is amazing this year.  I've harvested so much. Now I just need my tomatoes to hurry up so I can enjoy some caprese.

The grasshoppers are having a great time eating my green bean plants.  They are bad this year because it has been so dry.  They have no food in the alfalfa field.  They usually cut 2-3 crops. This year they got 1 small one.

Another type of heirloom.  I think this one is a pink brandywine. 

 My jalapenos are starting to grow.  

My carrots are almost done - these are the last few in the ground.

This is a photo of the oregano my mom gave me last summer.  I'm just letting it grow and fill in where it is at this year.

I love the bunches here.  

Grapes  - after 3 years I have 3 whole grapes.  We'll be putting in the trellis system this year.  We are going with the cordon system and we just need to pick up the materials soon.  It should be easy - two 4x4 cedar posts, #9 wire, and the wire vice, plus drilling some holes in the posts.  I think the hard part will be digging the holes 2 feet deep for the posts. 

The serrano peppers with the blue sky 

An actual serrano pepper

My spirit bush pumpkins are growing.  I need to fertilize again soon.

Crook neck squash - I've harvested most of them early so they are tender but I've left two on their to get large so that I can save the seeds for Kiwi.  He loves squash seeds. 

Summertime lettuce - as new batch.  Pretty and tasty and a ball head that can take the heat.

My green bell peppers are finally growing something. 

My Utah celery is pretty tasty.  We used it in the gluten free soy free chicken salad with grapes that I made last week.  Oh so yummy on some Udi's bread. 

My peas have finished and I cut them down after this. 

green beans with a row of wax beans in the center.

My first crop of wax beans  - 15 feet of them but I've only picked a few to saute.