What have you done today in the Garden?

I took another looksee at the bees tonight.... now the queen has emerged. I couldn't find her as they were hanging in a big beard and I had no veil on nor did I want to blow my breath on them and agitate them to move them around a little. It is chilly and I figured I would probably get stung on the face just trying to have a peek at her.
I planted up the small greenhouse, too. Now I have a Fall crop of tomatoes, cukes, I hope and peppers. I can clean up my outside garden and have my greenhouse and high tunnel still producing and be ready for Fall before it gets here... thats the plan anyway.
Not much gardening today as I was busy baking for tomorrows market. 9 loaves of potato bread, 9 loaves of zucchini bread and 6 dzn chocolate chip cookies.

 

Wow Carolyn, your energy astounds me!

We had a terrific rain storm here yesterday with hail! The ice balls were 1/4-1/2 " in diameter! It was fun to watch them bouncing around. Fortunately my perennials are fine. I'll go out to the community garden later today to see how the vegies faired.

I have been clearing out an atea of the garden that has gotten way overgrown. Yesterday I picked up used cardboaRd boxes to lay down to suppress the vegetation.

 

thanks CM, I thought it was a quiet day.

 

Today no watering. That saved me 2hrs so I had time for weeding and planting. I planted beans and attached the tomatoes and aubergines and peppers. I transplanted 10 cauliflowers and 40 lettuces and 120 leeks and then it started thundering so we went inside just in time. I harvested my first cucumber and some potatoes a huge chinese cabbage and some fennel.

 

Farewell to the strawberry plot.
It has served well, but we have decided to rip the plants out and handle the soil...then plant the plot full with green manure and a new leafy-veg...well, new for us, that is. --Klaroen... Amaranthus dubius.

 

I plant amaranth too. I have a red amaranth that I eat the leaves just like spinach and also a green amaranth that I grow for the seeds. There is also some kind of wild amaranth that grows as weed.

 

I haven't been on for a few weeks. So much has been done. My compost bin is started, everything is mulched and thriving(for the most part). Had a round of bitter cucumbers which I blame on the super hot weather and just not enough water, but we got it worked out. I'm really having an issue with greenbeans this year. The purple kings are doing great but the green pole beans just are having a hard time coming up on their own. THe next 3 weeks I have to be extremely unyielding in reference to watering and pest control. I have entered a few classes in my State Fair and in order to be in any way competitive, I'll have to be even more attentive. If anyone has any tips on fair judging criteria I'll take em lol

 

I finished the posting above, as I had to suddenly leave before I had posted the last foto. Guests at the door and someone to measure for mozzie screens.

Anyhow, I have done that now and will add that I have removed another honey super from one hive over at the stand. The first super was full spring honey and my bride kept it all for herself. We are in the process of turning it into "spun honey".

We harvested the second plant of spuds and some beetroot. They have co come out a bit earlier than we would like, but mice are eating them like mad.


You can see the middle beetroot has been chewed on. The light red beetroots are Chioggia. The dark red ones are new ones for me, and I can't find the seedpacket.

 

detroit dark red? the mice and voles are terrible. do you have castor bean seeds you can plant around your lottie? if so get some in. my neighbor was just complaining about the moles/voles at her house... I said she must need to plant castor beans... like i did. they must be leaving here and going there because the tunnels are disappearing. I have them planted wherever I have room... at the end of each row, at the posts for the grapes, along the chicken fence, along the tunnels ends... they get big so you might need to prune them, but they really do help. voles and moles are repelled by the castor oil.

 

I shall have to look up castor beans again. Truthfully, I do not know if we would have the room on our lottie. I shall read-up on them though. Thanks for the tip.

 

Ah yes---Ricinus.
Yes, I know that.

 

I finally made the time to weed the veggie patch yesterday. I filled my large wheel barrow twice, and I still have 2 rows to weed!
Today, I weed the back flower gardens!

 

amazing isn't it how full a bucket quickly gets and then it is enough for a wheel barrow? oyvey! I have carrots and beets awaiting me but I think I am going to snip the weeds out with a pair of hand snips. no pulling at this point. dreading it knowing what is there.

 

Husband mowed and bagged the back yard--three garden carts full of clippings for both the inside and the outside coops. Happy hens! They love to scratch and examine and pick out the tasty bits in the clippings.
I picked the last of the corn, more cucumbers, tomatoes, and gave the beans a pass until tomorrow. With the tomatoes coming on so well I think I'll be doing two batches of marinara sauce this week.
Had an elderly gentleman stop and ask if he could buy a few tomatoes "tomatoes taste better fresh from the garden." He even offered to pick them himself. I explained that no one got into my garden but me, and that I'd gladly give him a few tomatoes. I asked how many he wanted, expecting him to say a half bushel or so, but he said very shyly, "Would three be too many?" I gave him six, and told him I picked something almost every day, and if he saw me out to stop and see what was in the harvest basket. Couldn't talk him into taking a cucumber . . . .

 

I dug up 2 rows of potatoes and I transplanted 35 hokaido pumpkins in their place after enriching with compost and manure. I transplanted 14 courgettes I hilled up a row of potatoes. And I planted a row of potatoes. I planted carrots and radishes and parsnips and planted stakes for the capsicums. I weeded and weeded and weeded. I got given a whole lot of dahlias, so I planted a row of dahlias. Dahlia bulbs are edible by the way. I fed the tomato house with comfrey and I harvested some lettuces and a bowl of raspberries. A well productive day. And I harvested some rhubarb. Tomorrow normally I will plant purple and yellow bushbeans.