Veggie Garden 2012

Before Dawn-Marie and I headed out for Faire in the Grove at the beginning of the month we had gone vegetable start shopping. We started at a little stand along the side of the road that had been advertising .75 cent starts. Since we are both on tight budgets, it seemed like a good place to start. We picked up squashes and tomatoes and a couple of herbs and some peppers. Then off to the Tualatin Valley Gardners Association annual plant sale at the Fairgrounds. There we picked up more tomatoes, found some broccoli and Dawn-Marie picked up some blueberry plants and I found a Japanese Rose, the last one! We brought them all back to my place, then changed and headed off to the event. I then planted them that next week:

Pepper box all full up

Length of the main veggie area with the artichoke already going from last year as well as the Swiss Chard that wintered over. I really need to learn how to eat the Swiss Chard rather than giving it away to people. The artichokes have two or three starts going. There's broccoli, cauliflower, edamame, spinach, green peppers, snap peas, green beans, Sun Gold tomatoes, orange cherry tomatoes, and two Romas as well as crook neck, couple zucchinis, and a butter nut squash.

This has the acorn squash, mini pumpkins and the spaghetti squash as well as a water melon start. Already in there was a potato and an onion. I picked up Walla Walla onions and a sweet onion pack (STILL need to get the onions planted!)

Baby Asian Pears

I had to wait for Brandon to fix the copper trellis against the shed before planting the Japanese Rose, here it is leaning against the BBQ.

Baby cherries

Wisteria in bloom

Can anyone tell me what the pod is on the wisteria? Does it do something? Is it edible?

The climbing hydrangeas are taking off on the shed. I've had to clip a few branches that have tried to go in the door. Hopefully it blooms this year. So those were all the beginning of the month. Here we are at the end of the month and this is how things look now:

Peppers, poor things have had their leaves eaten on. I need to get slug bait in the box.

There's a green pepper in the far back left with the artichoke (see the two?), and around that is the broccoli and the cauliflower (some of it).

In the far back you can see some Nasturtiums that came back, more cauliflower, the beans and peas are against the trellis, squashes and the edamame with the spinach.

Leeloo nibbling on the grass shoots I need to weed out amongst the tomatoes.

STILL need to plant the onions, and the water melon I just couldn't keep going - I tried with two different plants.

Baby cherries now, starting to go red!

Nasturtiums coming up in the lawn. They'll get mowed down probably tomorrow night if I don't get them transplanted back in the box. These are from seeds that dropped last fall. How does your garden grow?

Fruits and Veggies

 This is our first year trying to grow artichokes. I'm rather impressed by the show. It's a nice sized globe.

 It wasn't alone though and has a second smaller stalk growing along side.

I think the red cabbage heads are probably ready to pick. I really only grew these with the plan to use them as a natural dye for the yarns. The yarns I thought I'd use them with are off at the State Fair. So I'm just letting them grow, though Greta asked me Thursday night if I had let them bolt.....

Twin orange cherry tomatoes! They are totally separate from each other, but joined by a single stem. They were yummy to eat, so sweet its like candy.

I bought a flat of Boysenberries to make into jam. These are the processed (truly canned) jams waiting to be put away. I was kind of disappointed in the farm stand. I had called and asked for a flat, they said they would pick them fresh the next morning and then call me when they were ready. I picked them up Saturday early afternoon and started canning them. Sunday early afternoon. I ended up throwing around almost 3 pints of moldy fruit - top, middle and bottom moldy fruit. 

I came up with enough leftover that I was also able to do a freezer jam. Plus the trays of individual berries went into two quart bags, so some summer love in the winter months.

The blackberries on the other side of the fence looked like they were ripening, so Dawn-Marie and her daughter Samantha joined William and I in picking some. They took theirs to Sport of Kings to eat with their yogurt. I discovered I had 5 cups of berries, pre-crushing and so added in some frozen raspberries and made a yummy batch of jam with them. No pics of those jars but they look very similar to the Boysenberry jars.

Since we were kind of in a picking mode and I had William's help to reach the higher limbs, we picked the figs. I ate a couple fresh and warm from the tree, then peeled their green outer skins and filled dehydrator trays.

The blueberries are slowly ripening this year and several of the bushes really, really need to be moved to better locations.  I've eaten handfuls, but have also started freezing the picked ones for summer love in the cold winter months. Nothing like a nice berry smooth with berries from your own yard. ;-)

These are the tomato bushes overgrowing their metal cages. There's Romas and orange and yellow cherry tomatoes in that mess. You can kind of see gleams of the ripening orange cherry tomatoes. Brandon has since pulled them up and given them support to the roof overhang. Now it just has to stay nice for the Romas to have a chance at ripening. I plan to use the dehydrator on at least half of them for some 'sun-dried' tomatoes.

It's very weird. I looked up how to do 'sun-dried' and everyone says the best way is to use a food dehydrator. So that's what I'm going to do. I can pack them closer to the holidays in some nice olive oil and give jars as gifts.

This is our heavily laden Chehalis apple tree. They are also ripening early this year, I can see picking some before the end of the month.  I'd like to put away some in the freezer for pies over the year. Brandon also likes making cider. I need to shop for another apple tree. The gala has always been a weak producer - very small apples that are spotty. I'll need a semi-mature replacement. Towards the back of the Chehalis is a Black Turkey Fig that also needs to be moved this fall. It tried growing fruit this year, but needs to have a better location than under the apple tree.

Not pictured is the Asian Pear. It's branches are also full of fruit. I'll enjoy one of the varieties and send off the other to people who like them. I can't remember which varieties we have, it started out as a four and I think we've lost the grafted branches of two.