Bean Doing Okay?

Yup.  Bean doing great!  

More than several years ago, I asked my mom why she never grew green beans in the small patch of garden out behind our house where she would throw a couple of seeds and grow the biggest, tastiest tomatoes.   Her response was, "You kids never liked them."  (As an adult, fresh green {string} beans have become one of my favorite vegetables.)  Her response caused me to reflect..  As a young girl, I remember sitting on the neighbors' front porch with my sister and their younger set of twin girls, with big bowls (similar to the picture below) of fresh green beans between us, talking and laughing, all while cleaning and snapping green beans. The older set of  twins and their mom had picked the beans earlier and "our job" was to get them ready for pressure canning for winter meals.  Our ulterior was obvious, my sister and I helped the twins with their chores so the four of us could 'goof off' together.  Win/Win

Maybe it's just me, but, I could NOT recall ever eating any cooked, fresh green beans.  Oh snap! Light bulb ON.  Of course, we ate green beans - but they were store bought, canned ones, that were then boiled for another obligatory 15 minutes. (Frozen beans were too expensive.)  So, what ended up on our plate was pretty much mush.  No wonder we (I for sure)  didn't like them.  It was the mushy, flavorless, texture!  Ugh!   Don't get me wrong, my parents did the best they could with what they had and at least we had food.  And I did try to eat a spoonful or two, each with a bite of potato.  My point is that today the vegetables I eat and love have more flavor than the ones I grew up eating … asparagus is another one that tastes different fresh rather than canned and boiled the required 15 minutes!  

Lesson:  Try a vegetable that you didn't like when you were a kid - you might be surprised.    
 

3.5 pounds of Blue Lake Pole Beans, straight out of the garden.  Half were cleaned, snapped and put in a crockpot on top of a layer of bacon.   Made a great meal after a hard day's work.  After cooking for three hours ... not mushy.  

The extra table set up to accommodate the winter squashes, tomatoes and eggplant.  

Fresh sweet corn coming soon.  

Make it a great day!  

Happy Birthday, USA!

2019 Season has officially BEGUN!

What a great day to be grateful! 

Outside of the produce stand are stock tanks brimming with u-pick edibles, nasturtium flowers, basil, peppers and cherry tomatoes.  Also new this year is an herb garden.  The summer heat is pushing the herbs to go to seed. (Plus, it didn't help that a little bird nested in the parsley and snacked on the herb container next to her nest. So, as soon as we noticed she was there, we stopped watering that particular container.  The three babes have left the nest and watering will resume, plus, we have new parsley sets.  Thank you, Mom Nature for sharing.)

In the cooler is lettuce, cauliflower, cabbage, green onions, couple dozen fresh eggs, snow pod peas and on the table is some zucchini and potatoes.  

Hope you can stop by.   We will be open as we have product and close when we run out.  Great crop of garlic and potatoes on deck.  

 Happy Fourth to you and yours and make it a great day.  

Raised Beds

Raised Bed Project - 2019

The soil in our main gardens stays pretty wet until around June.  So, as many of you gardeners know, there are plenty of crops, i.e. peas, carrots, beets, potatoes, etc. that can be planted in March/April when the soil is cool and fairly dry, i.e. no mud.  Not good to plant in mud, even with shoe covers, the plants don't like it. In order for us to begin planting earlier, we determined that raised beds would be our best option.

Empty pallets 

Side note:  In 2004 we started out with "temporary" concrete block raised beds. "Temporary" in that the blocks were set on smoothed out soil, filled with sand and some covered with plastic lumber.  All a big experiment.  Several problems arose - wasps built their nests under the plastic lumber, and because we didn't cover some of the blocks, we had to weed in the individual blocks, and the rain did wash much of the sand out of the corners of the blocks.  BUT, even with these issues, the beds were a resounding success!  We learned how to manage the soil in the beds.  The decision was made, that since we had all of the concrete blocks, that we mortar each bed and put a permanent cover over them.  So, ta da!

Hoping to open the stand in Mid-June give or take a week or two!  Adding an herb garden just outside of the stand.

 

Gravel walkways will allow for weed burning.

Yay, Spring ... Your arrival is soooooo Welcome!

Yawn!  Big Stretch!  Just like our lawn, the asparagus, rhubarb, daffodils, tulips, and our Mason Bees, we are waking up to Spring and the fun work ahead!  The lawn has been mowed a couple of times … always a good warm up.

Here is a short list of what we've (Doug mostly) been up to:    

March:

• grafted apple and prune (plum) trees;
• set out Mason Bees;
• dormant sprayed fruit orchard;  
• mortared together (with very good help) raised beds; 
• weed whacked the cover crop in our small garden;
• planted radish seeds (that the little birds pulled out of the ground);

April:

• planted cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower (in a raised bed);

April to do:

• replant herbs, I.e. marjoram, parsley;
• plant onions, lettuce, peas, carrots;
• flowers in containers;
• in the greenhouse start peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes;
• and a whole lot more!  

Good to be back!  Don't be afraid to make it a great day! Char

Season ending - dusk October 28, 2018

A beautiful, bountiful season coming to a close.  Our produce stand will close for the season at dusk on October 28, 2018.  

We're in wonder and awe at how Mother Nature blessed us with her abundance! Yeah, I would say 800 ears of corn is an abundance. Too quickly over.  We are planning for next year by putting together seed lists and planting calendars.  Cleaning out the greenhouse. 

Our gardens are almost put to bed.  Cover crops planted and sprouting, old hay is laid down, the T-tape is getting picked up.   

As soon our gardens can be worked in the spring, we will get to planting.   See you in the Spring - watch this space for exact date.  Hoping for May, but it could be June.  

Thank you for stopping by and purchasing veggies from our produce stand.  

To your health!  All the best, Doug and Char

We have a Winner!

Here are two of several Hubbard's that we grew this year.  The Hubbard on the left weighed in at 18 lbs.  

The Hubbard on the right was our contest prize.  It weighed in at 43.7 lbs.  We had two guesses that were the same and the closest.  Therefore, the person who guessed the closest weight first, is the winner.   But we will provide a second prize to the second place winner. 

And just how does one get to the innards?  If you google Hubbard Squash - one of the ways to get them open is to drop them!  Who knew?  Thanks AS for sharing. 

Thank you all for being a good sport and participating.  We will be in touch! 

Make it a great day!

Par for the Course ...

Oh, my gourd!

For those of you who have large garden spaces, Hubbard squashes are fun and easy to grow.  The green thumb swells with pride each time one of these giants is found partially hidden under their leaves.  

Due to their massive size, we don't typically grow regular Hubbard Squash to sell.  Instead, we look for the smaller varieties, one's that will feed a family of four, rather than fourteen.

So, earlier this year while shopping for seeds, we found a seed packet labeled "Baby Blue Hubbard".   Emphasis on "Baby".  (The clue, if paid attention to) should have been the five seeds and their size.  Ah, 'par for the course' we learn something new every year. 

"Baby Blue" was referring to the color of the Hubbard, not the size.  For comparative purposes, that's a golf ball resting against the vine.   

  

Lower left - muck boot. 
Make it a great day!