our homestead: garden's growing

My little garden is off to a good start. I am beyond happy that the growing season is here again. Every morning I enjoy the ritual of letting my birds out, watering the plants in my greenhouse and watching the growth of my vegetable garden while casually plucking weeds. I'm fairly tired from a busy day of working the yard and I'm about to go sit out on the porch for the remainder of this warm evening we're having to listen to the sounds of nightfall and to smell the sweet scent of my white lilac (it seems to emit the most perfume at dusk), so I'll post a few photos of my garden's current state.

Wild numbers of sunflowers are popping up every which way around my yard. Aww, we'll be so lucky when they are all flowering.

Nasturtiums, German Chamomile and poppies are all growing.

Velvety and tangy 'Apple Mint' growing taller everyday. I'm looking forward to some summer mojitos made with this. Yum!

Our main vegetable patch (we have a few other patches scattered around the yard). This is also where we grew our garlic patch last year. I made some nice raised beds and everything I've planted here is coming up.

I've already snuck a few 'French Breakfast Radishes' from our radish patch. Oh so sweet and adorable.

One of my little broccoli plants. This is my first year growing broccoli.

Potatoes! This year I planted two potato patches: one for us and one for the ducks. I read that mashed potatoes make for a good filler food for ducks, so we'll be able to stretch our feed dollars more.

Baby 'Lacinato Kale' peeking out of the soil. Waiting to be braised with some lemon and chickenstock.

Our arugula patch. Soon this will grace my homemade pizzas with pancetta and goatcheese. Oh baby! 

Itty-bitty kohlrabi: one of my favorite vegetables. When it's full grown, its stems will swell into little green baseballs. You peel them and snack on them fresh or can roast them up. They are in the cabbage family and taste like sweet broccoli.

'Arabian Nights Nasturtiums' peeking out of the ground in the vegetable garden. Their flowers are supposed to be red, white and purple in lieu of the usual orange and yellow. They'll help ward off certain insect pests and will be a sweet and spicy addition to our salads.

Fava beans! These guys are sweet and nutty, like a delicious lima bean (har har), and can be planted with peas as they are more of a colder season bean.

Snap and shelling peas coming up below my branch pea trellis.

My tomatoes are in full swing in the greenhouse. I think they are taller and healthier than they were last year at this time. In fact, I'll have to go back and check, but I'm not even sure I had them out to the greenhouse yet last year.

I also have lots of tomato flowers blooming, meaning I'll have tomatoes sooner this year than last.

Oh what have we here! My first "tomato".

Here's one of my 'English Brown Turkey' figs, leafing out.

And the peppers!

This is my happy place.

our homestead: the growing season's really here at last

We've been having a very mild start to summer...a few sunny days here and there. Still some overcast but temperatures are thankfully rising. For instance, though it was very cloudy the other day, it was at least a balmy 70 degrees out. I'm still hoping for more sun (like everyone), though I've always joked that summer in Western Washington really starts on July 5th (the day after Independence Day as it usually rains on the 4th of July). Anyway, though everything will be late this year, my vegetable garden is really taking off. The tomatoes, celery and cucumbers are becoming thick and lush in my little green house (see top photo). In fact, I've been munching on a cucumber here and there as I water my tomatoes (which finally have tiny green tomatoes after days of hand-pollinating their flowers with an electric toothbrush). Part of my morning ritual these past few weeks has been to snack on sugar snap peas straight off the vine and leaves off my lacinato kale after taking care of the tomatoes and cucumbers. I'm pretty proud of my little kale patch- I've heard that this year has been hard on this particular type of kale. Somehow I have it growing quite happily in my yard. My potatoes are also incredibly bushy and flowering...all sorts of colors: purple, peach, yellow and white (see purple flower photo above). When potato plants start to flower it means that tuber development has begun. I've already snitched and enjoyed a few small fingerlings and some red potatoes from two of my plants. The last photo in the line above is of me hiding in my pea and potato patch. I also have about 100 onions (red, sweet and yellow) growing, rainbow corn popping up, marigolds blooming and my sunflowers are almost hip-level. I'm waiting for my garlic to be ready to harvest...then I'll be able to plant pumpkins and some more corn starts I have growing in little pots in my greenhouse.

 

our homestead: first signs of asparagus and my garlic's looking good

Watching vegetables grow is so rewarding. When I'm not out weeding, mulching, hauling dirt in my wheel barrow, pruning or slug hunting, I just like to sit and admire all of the little starts I planted pushing out of the ground. Today, I spotted tiny turnip, carrot and lettuce sprouts, as well as I found some two inch onion starts and sunflowers. My peas are also vigorously climbing and are about a foot tall now. My lacinato kale starts are about half that height.

 

Anyway, I discovered a few purple asparagus spears starting to shoot out of the earth where I planted them back in April. Ha, my first thought was, "Yipee! It's working!". I really derive some simple happiness from watching things grow because whenever I plant something, I put a little hope into the success of my seeds. We've been having such a cold spring that any growth seems exceptional to me. Oh, and my garlic's looking great too! Thick, long green leaves which emit a pungent garlic aroma whenever I brush my hands by them while weeding. We'll be sure to have some gourmet roasted garlic for dinner this summer at my house!

our homestead: oh hey, potatoes!

All of the potatoes I planted back in early spring are growing and appear to be very healthy. I planted French La Ratte Fingerlings, Peruvian Purples and Nordland Roasters. I've been foliar feeding my potato plants about once a week now...usually I give them a little spritz of a mix of water and organic fish fertilizer (nice and stinky). I also like to crumble a little compost around each plant now and then. It also helps that I planted sugar snap peas next to my potatoes- legumes grab hold of nitrogen in the air and bring it into the soil (nitrogen promotes leafy green growth). Right now, my pea starts are about a foot tall each.

Two of the best preventatives of potato blight include crop rotation and good nutrition. I'm growing my potatoes in soil that has been free of potatoes or tomatoes or any other Nightshaders, and I'm keeping up on the nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous.

Anyway, I did my first "hilling" yesterday. Hilling- where one draws the soil up around the potato plants on either side to build a raised mound- is essential for edible tuber development as tubers that are exposed to sunlight can turn green (a green potato can give you a stomach ache). The potatoes will branch off along the stem of the plant, so in hilling the soil, I'm ensuring that my tubers will grow in darkness and thus be fit to eat. There's nothing like a new potato- fresh, buttery and sweet with thin, papery skin. Mmm...

our homestead: gee, I like fruits n' veggies.

I am absolutely, positively in love with vegetables. And fruits. And mushrooms. And nuts. And all the other nifty edibles Mother Nature has generously provided for us human folk to discover. There is nothing as marvelous as the act of pulling a bright, sweet carrot from the dirt..or brushing one's hand over the rich, green and nutty leaves of spinach. There is nothing as tantalizing as a roasted baby red fingerling potato pierced with a shiny fork- its creamy, buttery flavor but moments from being enjoyed. There is nothing that smells as clean and cool as a just-sliced lemon cucumber or as sweet and tart as a vine-ripened cherry tomato.

In writing this blog, I have decided it would best to share my adoration for produce with others- to grant people with creative recipes, cool facts, and colorful photographs about the gourmet flora I love. Where did this 'love' sprout from? Well, it could be in my nature: both sets of Great Grandparents on my mom's side were either farmers or nursery owners in the "old countries". I might also mention my green-thumb parents: a dad who once owned his own landscaping business and a mom with a tomato farm. On this note, my admiration of veggies also stems from childhood years of eating lesser-known purple potatoes, carving pumpkins grown in a big patch down our hill, picking berries, cherries, and apples galore from our yard, and tending my own mini-vegetable and sunflower gardens. My mom, a talented woman in all things "earthy", began making goatsmilk soap and soon headed to the local farmers market with her creations. This venture to the market inspired her to pursue farming: tomatoes, honey, garlic, herbs, eggplant, basil, cucumbers, eggs...and needless to say I came along and became a "market brat", spending much of my time at the market, meeting local farmers, and learning the "in's and out's" of fruits and veggies. Thus, in a nutshell, I bring this blog to you- a place where I can express how awesome vegetables really are.