May 2016 Has Been Rainy, Weird

I can't remember a rainy May in Wenatchee. It has been nice not to have to water as much. It has been warm enough not to cause concern for things like peppers and tomatoes, but it has been mild enough for the lettuce and peas to do well. Several of the recent Mays here have been way too hot for spring crops like peas and lettuces.

Here is a picture from the front of the garden. I now have 8 raised beds, each 8 feet by 4 feet. This year I added a bag of composted steer manure and a bag of composted chicken manure to each bed along with a good topping of my homemade compost. I let them spend the winter covered with chopped leaves and grass clippings. When I dug into them to plant things this spring there were plenty of worms everywhere. I have also added 12 feet of red raspberries from my grandparents house and a patch of golden raspberries, also from the grandparents. I have planted alpine strawberries along the shady side of the house and I now have three small jelly bean blueberry bushes and one medium blueberry bush. The Rhubarb bush in the front garden is also doing well.



The Carrots are just now starting to come up:



I planted marigolds on either end of most of the garden beds. They are from seeds from last year, the french single marigolds that I like.



These are the sugar pod peas. They are the only ones that are making peas so far. I planted them about 2 weeks earlier than the others.



These are turnips from seeds that I bought at the goodwill near my sisters house in Seattle, as a joke. I bet they will turn out great.



The beets came up this week, as well.

These peas were planted from some old seeds and not too many of them actually came up. It is too bad because this is my daughter's favorite type.



Here are my broccoli. No ants have eaten them off around the bottom this year. Fingers crossed.



A few of them are making little heads already:



My mom started some peppers for me. These are Alma cayenne:



These are a very pretty purple Aurora peppers, also from my mother:

I planted the onions (purple and Walla Walla) close together and I thin them as I use the green onions.



The onions are trying to protect the Kale from herbivorous insects, but it isn't really working. I have found quite a few caterpillars on it.



This lettuce over wintered and is now going to seed. It was nice to pick a few salads from it early in the spring, though.



I bought these spindly Jalapeno peppers at the FFA plant sale. They will be great in a while. Half of the six pack are in a larger pot with one of the ollas that my brother made me last year. They already seem to be doing better than the others without the olla.





These are two pots of Serrano peppers that I got at SavMart. There are a total of 8 plants.



These are two pots of orange bell peppers I found at Shopko:



I also got these Green Bell Peppers there. One six pack had 13 plants in it.



This is my basil and tomato bed. I have built a different support system this year. I hope it works  well. I have planted basil between each tomato. The seed packet I used was a mixed assortment of types of basil. There is definitely some lemon basil and a purple basil in there. I am pretty sure one is a spicy globe and there are a couple that smell and taste more like cinnamon or Thai basil which are my favorite.



The wooden trellis is 8 feet tall and I have put twines down to each plant. I will add a twine for each major tomato branch.



Here you can see the potatoes, which appear to be starting to bud. I usually plant potatoes just to make creamed peas and potatoes. I think they will be ready when the shelling peas are, so yay!



Behind the potatoes are the Fava Beans.



They are just starting to make beans.



I have planted alyssum around to encourage syrphid flies to reproduce here to help the aphid problem.



Here is the herb garden. You can see that the sage, savory, chives, thyme, and oregano survived over the winter. The rosemary and french lavender did not. One of the parsleys did make it, but since it went strait to seed, I pulled it out. I planted 4 new Rosemary plants, all different types to see if any will over winter. I also planted tarragon, french lavender, new oregano, thyme and borrage from seeds.



Here is the raspberry patch" the first  few are starting to turn red



I replanted the strawberry bed this spring, so I don't expect to get very many berries.



The golden raspberries have become a pretty large bush.



I just planted this border patch in the back yard. The farthest plant is an artichoke. Let's see how long it takes. If I can get a bud or two I will be happy. The other plants are a Shasta daisy from Fred Meyers and some marigolds from the FFA plant sale.



I am glad to announce that both of my grape plants I planted on the arbor last year made it through the winter and are making grapes already. This picture is the Niagara grape. It flowered very early and has set fruit.



This view shows how both vines have grown:



This is the red table grape, Its still flowering and has lots of large groups of buds. If it sets most of the fruit there will be loads of grapes.



I planted a flat of new alpine strawberry plants and they are almost ready to be planted out.



The plants I planted two years ago are making so many little delicious berries right now.



I picked a few after this picture. They aren't quite super ripe yet, like I like them, but still good.



Well, that is everything that is going on in my garden right now. Stay tuned for an exciting post about the chickens.

Spoiler: I put some fertilized duck eggs under the broody hens.

Middle of June Already? Where Did the Spring Go?

My rhubarb is very young, only having been planted this spring, and having had to overcome ants and earwigs feeding on it, but it is doing so well that I went ahead and harvested two very large stems.  It was exactly enough to make my favorite dessert: strawberry rhubarb squares.  We served it up at one of our latest barbecues with my aunt and uncle along with some creamed peas and new potatoes.  I will post both of those family recipes on the recipe page as soon as I finish this post.

The strawberries I used for the strawberry rhubarb squares were also from the garden.  The recipe calls for 2 cups of each: sliced rhubarb and sliced strawberries. I know I won't have enough strawberries for jam, but I had plenty for this recipe from one day of picking.

My pears are doing well.  The tree looks healthy, and the pears are getting bigger and bigger every week.

The peas are almost done. If you have been reading my blog all along, you know that I planted two different plantings of peas two weeks apart to stagger the harvests.  I also planted three different types of peas in hopes to have different harvest times and make the pea harvest last longer.  Yeah. So.... That didn't work out for me at all. The warm weather lately has forced all the peas to ripen together.  I think that the weather around here can be counted on to do this to me every year.  I don't know why I even try.  Oh well.  The peas have been delicious.  Only one of the pea varieties I planted has edible pods.  My daughter really likes those.  There have been enough of those for her, and enough of the other shelling peas for me to make four dinners for us and to give a whole 2 cups to my grandparents whose peas are just flowering now. My peas are pretty much done now, though.  I will pull them out later today and put in some more tomato plants that are getting very tired of being in pots.

There are still a few new pea pods, but the weather is supposed to be in the nineties again tomorrow, so the peas are done.

The peppers, however, are really thriving in the hot weather.  They are starting to flower.

The carrots are starting to look like carrot plants.  I love carrots.

Molly's gourds are flowering.  I have never grown gourds before, so when these beautiful flowers opening I was very pleasantly surprised.

Here is another flower on another type of gourd.

The Hansel eggplant is making flower buds even though it is still very small.  It is having a bit of a challenge with aphids.

The potatoes are dealing with aphids and leaf hoppers.  You can see a leaf hopper feeding on this flower.

There are so many lady bugs and lady bug larvae around.

The fava beans are so huge.  I have to do some reading about what to do with these when they are ripe. I want to try making falafel.

My first round of cilantro has become coriander.  By that, I mean that it has gone to seed.

It is a good thing I have been planting more.

Here are the hens.  They are getting to be really grown up hens instead of chicks.  I let them out into a round pen mad of chicken wire when I am outside.  They love it.  They eat bugs and weeds and talk all about it. They can also fly now.  They have flown out of the round pen a few times, but they don't go far and because I don't leave them out there by themselves, it is easy to round them back up.

The zuccini plant is just about to flower with it's first fruit.  I haven't seen any male flowers yet, so I am not sure this fruit will be pollinated.  I could pick it right now and eat it as is.  Mmm, embrionic squash.  My husband loves zucchini.  He can't wait till we start  getting to eat it.

Also, since my last post, the broccoli heads developed and were harvested and eaten.  They were very tasty.  The secondary buds on the sides have also been harvested and eaten, except this one, which it appears that I missed.  Don't worry.  I won't let it go to waste.

Look at these little guys.  The brussel sprouts are starting to form.  I think they will really thrive once I pull out the peas which are shading them and encroaching on their space quite a bit.

I notice this little gourd this time when I walked through.  It is so fuzzy and cute.  If it is pollinated it will grow to be a pretty large gourd.

Over all, the garden is turning into quite a jungle.  I have been out there several times with the pruners to trim things back and keep them under control.  I have trimmed the onions, garlic and the tomatoes.  I have thinned out the kale and carrots.  I have been training the pumpkins and cucumbers to have a single vine in one direction, and I have been trying to keep the gourds under some semblance of control. There is also a bit of weeding to do, especially between the raised beds. I guess I better get to work.