Community garden plots

Our community garden plots are bursting with life. It's where I spend several hours a week weeding, watering, weeding some more, harvesting, eating, reading and smiling. Yup, smiling. How can you not smile when you witness the seed you planted become food.

We've been snacking on sugar snap peas for a few weeks now.

The Roma tomato plants are loaded with fruit. The Big Boy and the Yellow tomato plants are bursting with fruit on their branches as well. I'd say they should be ripe in a week or two. I'm sooo ready! Bring on the salsa, tomato soup, stewed tomatoes, pizza sauce, diced tomatoes, all that is tomato making, canning business ON! I am sooo ready to don my green rooster apron!

The pumpkin plants are flowering now. We have 5 different pumpkin varieties planted. Some are for eating and others will be used to host our first ever Jackolantern carving party this Fall.

This pickling cucumber plant is going to burst any day now. We'll be making dill pickles, sweet pickles. relishes and all sorts of cucumber salads.

Green peppers are almost ready to eat. I know we can't rush mother nature but please, ripen my tomatoes somewhat soon so I can use these peppers along with the jalapeno peppers to make some salsa and stewed tomatoes. Yesterday I used our last homemade jar of stewed tomatoes. I'll need to add about 10 jars or so to our stewed tomato needs for the year.

Tomatoes and squashes are loving this warm weather.

Below is our one and only eggplant plant that survived all this rain we've been having. There are a few flowers so maybe we'll get a couple eggplants from this. We've never grown eggplant so we shall see. I love the suspense of the surprise.

My lil, 6ft tall brother and his girlfriend standing by a stalk of our sweet corn. This is the 1st year we have ever grown corn. Our soil definitely needs more nutrients and after this season we will be able to add manure and compost to our plots. This was our 1st year at the community garden and we have no way of knowing what was planted where last season. Next year we're going to be closer to having "black gold."

We've harvested oodles upon oodles of green beans. We have 4 more rows than these two that are providing us an abundance of beans and on Sunday I planted 4 more rows where the potatoes were. Ohhh yeah, last week I harvested the rest of our potatoes. Our tater tower at home is still intact and will be harvested in the next couple weeks.

The storm

A big storm went through our area last week. We had tornado warnings all through the day that were to end at 8pm. At around 9:30 that night Ken called me as he was passing through town and told me to look out the window. I went to the front porch, stood in the middle of the road, in the rain and watched the sky, then ran upstairs to my bedroom with my camera and stood on the back roof and took pictures. The sky was deep orange, red and yellow. Pretty but eerie at the same time. It was calm as can be and muggy as all hecklets.

It eventually got dark and there was no thunder or rain and the warnings were over with so I headed up to bed. I slept like a champ...which is entirely odd for me. When I awoke I let the pups outside and looked in the backyard. There were a scattering of leaves and twigs...nothing major. When I looked out the front door I saw that our big Adirondack bench was on the opposite side of the porch upside down and on top of my flower bed. Then there was a huge honkan limb in my neighbors front yard where their car is usually parked. Hmmm, it appears we had quite the storm that night. I never heard a thing. Either I am that deaf or my house is that soundproof. Whatever the case may be, I got dressed and went to our community garden to see how our veggies weathered the storm. Our corn was laying on the ground but still rooted in the ground. We have 22 or 24 rows of sweet corn and I spent the next few hours lifting the corn stalks from the ground and moving soil around the base so that they would stand back up. Yup, I did that to each and every stinkan stalk of corn. The peas had fallen down so those had to be put back up and re stringed. Only two tomato plants out of our 72 plants fell. We got very lucky!!

We have green beans and sugar snap peas coming out of our ears from the garden. I've harvested a few zucchini so far, the corn is beginning to tassel and ears of corn and lil tuffs of silk are forming. Let's hope we don't get another doozy of a storm. Having this garden has been amazing. It keeps me busy, feeds us, and there's nothing like muddy toes and some dirt under the nails.

Garden Mania

They say corn up in our neck of the woods should be knee high by the 4th of July. By golly, ours is thigh high. I know, I'm short...but still. We have 15- 15ft rows of sweet corn growing and it's all doing super!! Oh, and yeah, I went to the garden in between thunderstorms and left once it began down pouring on me.

The tomatoes are doing much better since we put mulch around them and the cauliflower is growing nicely. I don't know about you, but I can taste the cauliflower with melted cheese already. Yummoids!!

We're going to have oodles of pickling cukes, summer squash and acorn squash from these plants. Well, if the weeds don't take over. It had been very rainy and stormy for several days when I took these pictures. Now that it's been nice, although unbearably HOT and humid I've been pulling those buggers.

Yup, I'm gong to have to add a few more strings for the sugar snap peas to climb on. I may even have to take a step stool to harvest them if they grow much bigger. Remember...I'm only 5'5" which is pretty average but compared to my beastly hubby, I'm pretty darn tootan short.

The other night when I went to the garden to harvest I ate a handful of the sugar snap peas and the green beans. Hey, instant dinner! =)

I spy a sweet green pepper. This will soon be incorporated into some salsa or stewed tomatoes. Deeee-lish!

We should have a nice crop of Roma tomatoes. I can't remember right off the top of my head but there are at least 40 Roma plants. We use these for salsa and stewed tomatoes.

These are a yellow tomato variety. I find eating tomatoes just gross but Ken doesn't. I'm thinking we will add a handful of these along with the Big Boy tomatoes when we make our homemade tomato soup.

Woot woot!! Our first zucchini is growing. These are just a few pictures I took almost two weeks ago from our large 30x60 plot at our community garden. We now have yellow squash growing, pumpkin vines getting bigger, tomatoes filling the bushes, onions have been harvested, a few pounds of green beans and sugar snap peas have been harvested also. The acorn squash and butternut squash is taking off like wildfire. The potatoes are almost ready to be dug. We'll give them till the end of the month and the corn is much much higher. =)

Our raised beds have provided us with many green onions, carrots, a handful of strawberries, wax beans, green beans, chives, lettuce, spinach and the zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes and pepper plants are going through a growth spurt. Soon, I will have to use a step stool out there too so I can harvest.

Got some dirt for ya

This post is brought to you by Potato Planter Ken and Farmer Kathy. Don't worry, we won't be singing "the farmer in the dell" and doing a lil dance. We would, if this garden was in a secluded area but alas, it's right on the highway so it's not really a good idea...unless we want the local po-po to pick us up because they thought we escaped from the ward. You will see some dirt and the debut of my very first dirty video though!!

After lunch at Ken's grandparents house we went to our local hardware store and purchased a roll of snow fence. It's to hopefully keep the wildlife out, or at least deter them from eating our soon to be delicious veggies. We are the first ones to have our fence up and we planted most of our seeds.

In the far right corner we havd a 15' x 15' section for sweet corn. In front of that is where our potatoes get planted.

Here I am planting our assorted squashes. Acorn, butternut, yellow summer and zucchini.

Ken has the taters all spaced out and ready to be drilled into their holes. Wait till you see the video at the bottom of this post. It's exciting stuff Maynard!!

They even provide us with a porta pottie with harder than a paper bag toilet paper. I had to go check it out and of course Ken had to snap a picture...without me knowing. He was supposed to be working ;)

Planting the sweet corn...Can't you see it growing there already? I can. Yes, I am fully aware of the city slicker wanna-be farmer with her rear end in the air. I also see stalks 10 feet tall filled with ears of corn. Then, I see the stalks on our porch beams for fall decorations. It's going to be fantastic!!

The front area is the future home of dozens upon dozens of tomatoe plants. It's still a bit too cold to plant the tomatoes and peppers though. But look, the ground is ready and the carrots and onions are planted. =)

See my 15 foot double row of peas and beans? Those are going to be DEEEEE-LISH!!! We worked on the garden for almost 6 hours after lunch. It was a fantastic Mother's Day. =) I'll have to show you all the beautiful flowering bush Ken got for me and the sweet card. Have I mentioned lately that not only do I have a handsome hubby but he's so thoughtful, ooberously funny and one heckuva farmer!! LOL

And here is my first ever recorded dirty video. It stars "Potato Planter Ken" with "Farmer Kathy" behind the camera. We picked up this planter gadget last summer at the State Fair for $20. Talk about neato!!!