We Have Officially Moved On...

..It is now time for the late-season vegetables to make their appearance...
The garden is not as pretty - actually the garden looks kind of terrible(!) but only if you take a wide view...corn and beans uprooted and mowed down...peppers kind of fallen over from a storm or two: but up close, there is as much beauty as before...
The garlic is just about cured...enough to use anyway. although still a little sharp

The basil REALLY needs to be trimmed, but to do the job correctly would give you a garbage can full of basil, and that's too much to fool with all at one time. I had to fight the bees for this, even: It's the time of year when you have baskets and wheelbarrows and boxes and bins of vegetables kind of everywhere...not to mention all over the kitchen(!)
-

tonight's menu:

stewed okra and tomatoes

purple hull peas

fried green tomatoes

icebox melon

Didn't get around to pictures of the eggplants and peppers this morning: purple hull peas was the goal - enough for dinner. Calling on our CSA members to come on over and pick before the rains come. T.S.Alex should give us plenty of rain - it will mess up the garden, but the garden is halfway messed up already - and it will put water back into the pond, which is a good thing...

It Did Rain

...and I have proof: this is for Will, cooped up in his office today. We haven't had rain in many weeks, and then only a little. So, Will, this is for you.

Oh Wait!!

This one has thunder!

The Transitional Garden

It's so easy in the spring to take pictures of the developing garden...pictures that show order and beauty and all that is (at least for a little while) 'under control'. Before the weeds, before the drought, before the maturaton of anything planted for this season. I'm always amazed at the rapidity of change...so here we are, third week of June. Here are some 'then and now' scenes: Sunflowers: first they look up - then they hang their heads...heads of sunflower seeds will be on our CSA list this week for our families... (The sunflowers are beautiful in both stages)
First there was corn: ...and now there's not!
(takes a little getting used to, all this change)
First there was garlic, and in their place we now have field peas Once, you could walk through the flowers, and now you certainly can NOT!
This is just a taste of what's happening out in the garden - some things are just now coming into their own in the heat (eggplants, peppers...)

it's a transfomation - a little sad, but life is change, right?

"All Your Tomatos Are Belong To Me"

Bird and Cat

...It's that time of the year

the baby mockingbirds are hatching out

and the parents are all about terrorizing the cats!

look closely...that cat can't even figure out where the bird is....

Hard Work and Fun on a Saturday Morning

...but lets begin with Friday, shall we? We all know we will remember this year as the Amazing June Heat year - let us not think about August, ok? On Friday evening, csa members began to show up around 6 to help pull red beans off of the plants...a LOT of people showed up! This picture does not show the entire group, which expanded as time went on - and when we ran out of plants, we had to truck on out there and pull more - because Will was busy back there in the potatoes. It was beYOND hot. No breeze stirring; just sitting there in a chair, and sweat pouring off of you..and nobody complained. Beans were pulled and piled into carts, then boxes...ready for the Saturday baskets.

We had an amazing number of members come out to lend a hand on Saturday morning...much work to be done. Digging of the potatoes, picking up, hauling, sorting; a truly grimy task!

There was the second round of sweet corn...some people just like to pull the corn...when it was all said and done, we (for once) had extra corn - AND - it's not exactly 'all said and done' - there's still corn out there!

Then there was 'the weighing of the beans'...accomplished by the boys - who do love scales...3 lb bags...ready to go

Always - I ask the first two women who show up to be the flower-gatherers. Although it is truly beautiful out there in the zinnias, one must cut and trim each and every bouquet, then get it back to the packing area and put into a mason jar of water - this makes for many trips...and it is getting hotter by the minute...but the results - oh my.

And then there are the kids - the ones too young to work really enjoy meeting each other and playing all morning...I mean, how cute is this?.This morning (monday), I picked (or cut, rather) the cucumbers...beginnings of week 4 ...

The Life Of Garlic

These pictures begin last November, when garlic must be set into the ground. I want you to know that any CSA members you see working in these pictures were here to help long after the 09 season was over, and long before this season began. We just put out the call, and they showed up...amazing bunch of people, I tell you.

Here is the ground prepared for planting:

Then, we have the buckets of garlic 'toes', bought from the Glasers in New Roads (who sell at the BR Farmer's Market), and our csa friends setting out each one on these three 75-ft rows:

last, (but certainly not least- because it's a tough job) is the laying of hay over all of it, so the garlic can sprout and stay bedded down and weed-free until late spring

The garlic blooms about the time the strawberries play out (late May or so), and is beautiful, if a little strange looking to some:

And, as a grand finale, one of the dads from our csa families stayed and worked with Will to pull all of it, stack it in the barn for drying, and weed the rows, getting them ready for another planting (field peas).

I think this is beautiful, don't you?

And there you have it - start to finish. It takes many months, but such is the life of some things that must be over-wintered. And it's the only way to get fresh garlic (!)

Daniel - Future Beekeeper!

well, it was time to rob the beehives, and Daniel (from one of our CSA member families) had decided he wanted to get in there and help (!) Mom (Barbara) was SO supportive!...looked around for a smaller bee suit to buy...in the end, Will thought that a couple of shirts and some boots and an extra hood and gloves he had - well, they could make do. First of all, you won't catch me within 100 feet of the beehives. I love bees, but hundreds of thousands of bees?...

So here we are with the suiting up of Daniel: Mom makes sure there's LOTS of duct tape around that hood!Then we have the gloves (which came up to Daniel's shoulders, but that was a good thing...)

And finally, after every potential place where a bee could crawl in and sting Daniel was covered and taped (!), he's ready to go: And he went up the road to meet up with Will and the truck.
He helped move the boxes around, check in on the bees, and remove 4 boxes filled with honey to bring back to the house. Will was glad to have Daniel around for the honey-getting, and it's always cool when a young person shows such interest in the workings of the farm. Thanks, Daniel, for your help!

Although I don't have pictures of the actual honey-spinning operation, Daniel and his family were there, as was another member family.

..A picture of some of the results of our beekeepers' efforts...from this Saturday's CSA acticities:

I Don't Know What's Going On Around Here...

...But THIS guy was on the carport when I went out to do some clean-up. The fun never ends. This frog is HUGE!

OK: a little perspective is in order, I believe.

Aaaccck! - I'ts Walter the Wedding Snake!

I am petrified of snakes
and I know that's rediculous - because some are ok
but what's this guy doing up in this rosebush anyway?
I must say, I do appreciate him letting me know he's here...we call him Walter the Wedding Snake because last year, right before our son's wedding, this snake (or one very much like him) was stalking the bride-to-be as she helped prepare the flower beds.

'Would you Mind Picking The Cucumbers?'

'Oh...no problem!...sure!'

True, everything in the garden is beautiful in the early morning. Last Thursday, I picked 68 cucumbers...plenty enough for our CSA members for Saturday. Of course, not everyone chose cucumbers, so there are still some lurking in a bin in the outside cooler.

Even so, no vegetable waits for man; you either go out there and take care of business, or you have giant useless cucumbers, and vines that are putting too much energy into perpetuating giant useless cucumbers. All I can say is...when picking anything...there's kind of a rule. Don't look down toward the end of the row!

It's WAY too daunting! Just keep to the chore at hand and eventually you'll get to the end. We have this plastic netting pulled along this fence. It has tiny little squares. I have 2 distinct cucumber-picking problems. (1) those pesky cukes who chose to grow THROUGH the netting - so half is on one side and half on the other - and the only way to get them out is to cut a hole in the fence. Then, of course, you have this weird cucumber cinched in the middle...but it has to come out (see giant useless cucumber statement above). (2) I only pick on one side of the fence, because on the other side are 10-foot tall sunflowers and there's not enough room in there for a person. Well, if you squeeze in there you could do it I guess, but as we all know, the underside of cucumber AND sunflower leaves are sticky and will scrape you! SO; my little snips, although pointed, cannot reach those growing on the backside of the fence. Again, I have to actually cut a square of fencing out to get through and cut the darn thing. Man, I sound like a whiner...but that's not it. I'm just giving you the lowdown on picking massive numbers of cucumbers. You do have to be pretty careful. As with other vegetables that continue to produce throughout the season, you don't want to damage the plants, so you have to work slowly and show some respect for the vines....

Now on to the new garden cart. Yes, we love it - it's big and black and rolls nicely and is light. I pulled it up one of the old strawberry rows as I picked. I thought I'd avoid the 'dragging of the 5-gallon bucket.' This was a good idea, conceptually. Toward the end of the row, I was wondering how on earth i was going to pull that cart with all those cucumbers in it out of the garden and on to the house. I want to say this about that: I don't care how cool your new garden cart is. NOTHING is light and easy to pull when you've got maybe 80 lbs of ANYTHING in it. I'm glad nobody else was here. I got that thing to the carport, but it was one baby step at a time! Oh, and P.S. guess what's in everybody's basket this Saturday?