Sept 2011 - Ghost and habanero peppers. They are both extremely hot. One very small bite of the green ghost pepper was painful. I dried these to use in various dishes. 

Ghost pepper 2011

Bean harvest of 2011. I plan to dedicate more space to dry beans next year. Very easy crop to grow with a nice yieled. They are very easy to store.

Carrots planted August 2011. They have sprouted and are about 1-2" in December. 

Greens planted August 22, 2011. These have come up and I have spread them around the raised beds in December. I hope to have some nice greens come spring.

"Swan Squash" growing up and over the trelles. Growing the squash on the trelles takes advantage of the vertical demension. If you can't grow out, grow up! Another benefit of growing vertically is that it creates micro-climates under the trelles ideal for plants that like partial shade.

Brocolli growing in the shade of the squash. This prevents bolting and allows for harvest of all summer long. Carrots, beats, and lettuce are also grown here.

Time for dinner. I love fresh pesto.

Pole beans are up August 20th. I hpoe that there is enough summer left to get a harvest. I remade this bed and in the process put asparagus clippings in the bottom of the bed before filling with soil. This resulted in asparagus shoots coming all over in the bed. I may have to dig it out or let it becone an asparagus bed.

Flowers in the summer. I really like the colors in this bed.

Planting - 8-8-11

Planted:

Pole beans
Lettuce (assorted varieties)
Fall beets
Arugula
Winter squash

I'm pushing it with the pole beans and the squash. Maybe, if I get lucky.

Garden Images - 7/22/11

It has been a cool spring/ beginning of summer. It has only been in the 80s a few times so far.

Arugula bolting. This is a bit much to eat all of it. I will try and trim this back to see if I can continue to get leaf production and may thin a few of the plants. It is sooo good in salads.



This is one of the garfted tomatoes. This is two heirloom varieties. I'm growing them up the twine pruning all of the sports that form in the crooks of the leaves.



Luke's three sisters garden. Corn, squash, and beans.



Patch of bush beans coming along.



Marion berries are ready, yumm! I love these berries, they are so big and sweet. We have a had a nice harvest this year, so far 4 pints. To prune I take back all of the old vine coming off of the main vine in the fall/early spring.

Harvesting Cabbage

This is the first cabbage that we harvested from the garden. It was harvested a little less then two months from planting as a seedling. It made a very nice slaw that we served at a BBQ with peach glazed salmon.

Two new favorite tools for the yard. The saw is great for cutting bamboo that you can't get to with clippers. It cuts sooo smooth. The clawed tool (I don't know the Japanese name) is awesome for weeding, cultivating, chopping slugs, etc.

Backyard Orchard 6/20/11

The dwarf apple trees have set fruit. I noticed that a few of the leaves are yellowing. I think that this may be due to the need of fertilizer. I lifted out the mulch, added soil, weeded and added all natural organic fertilizer to all of the apples in pots.

Planting - 6-20-2011 Cucumbers

Planted 6-20-11

Planting - 6-14-2011

These are the radishes and carrots planted.



Carrot and radish planting 6/14/11. Two rows on the left are radishes and the six on the right are carrots.

Radishes up 6/21/11. Waiting for the carrots.

Planting of bush dry beans. They were planted in alphabetical order starting from the left. The last two rows (on the right) are Jacob's Cattle. The first two rows (on the left, small in front of the corn and squash) are a hodge podge of beans from Susie. The back left is a three sisters planting of corn, squash, and pole beans by Luke.

Bamboo - Shooting 2011

Bamboo shooting, Spring 2011.

Mini Greenhouse

Peppers and starts in the mini greenhouse. The peppers are doing good. We continue to have cool weather, 6-6-11. The peppers have flowers and are growing. Had to make and open a door on one end as it was 80 F over the weekend and reached nearly 100 F inside the greenhouse.

Planting - 5-22-2011 update

6-6-11
Carrots and Trumbetta di Albenga starting to sprout. Peppers doing well putting on new leaves.

Mini Greenhouse

67 in the greenhouse 52 out.

Mini Greenhouse

It looks like it will be a few more weeks until the warm weather arrives so I built this miniature greenhouse for the peppers. The windows were the originals installed in Pacific Hall at the U of O.

Planting - 5-22-2011

Now that the garden beds are complete it's time to start planting. The forecast is for 60s during the day and 40s at night. Not exactly warm crop weather. I forged ahead with some things like peppers, basil and squash as my beds are at 73 because of the composting action of the new dirt. We will see how it goes.

Here is the list of things that I planted today:

Cabbage Farao
Cabbage similar red 80
Beets (seeds)
Brussels sprouts Churchill.
Cavali squash (seed)
Fennel
Thai basil
Genovese basil
Italic parsley
Carrots (seed)
Broccoli (seed)
Holy mole pepper
Pimento pepper
Jamaican pepper
Ghost pepper
Jalapeño pepper
Trumbetta di Albenga (seed)
Sugar pumpkin (seed)

Garden bed construction - complete!

Thanks to the help of a great friend we finished moving the dirt. He was so kind he brought along some "cajun ice" (great cajun food from Louisiana frozen and used to send biological samples).

After


Before

Garlic transplanting

I had garlic planted from the fall in one of the old beds that was to be remodeled. So I transplanted half grown plants. As you can see, most of the dirt was removed when transplanting. Many of the roots were pulled off in the process. As garlic is similar to onions I figure that they will be just fine after they re-establish roots. I have never tried this or seen it done.


Garlic the day after the transplant. The plants are a little wilted and some are turning brown. This was likely caused by the root damage. The weather is supposed to be mild and wet. I'm pretty sure the plants will recover (we will see). I don't know if this will disrupt bulb production.

Garden bed construction - Dirt Moving Party

Busy filling the beds.


Happy dirt movers! With the motivation of a little Oakshire IPA and the promise of BBQ, we kicked out two beds in a few hours. Thanks to everyone for your help!!

Garden bed construction - Filling the beds

Filling the beds with soil. Had to build a ramp to be able to dump the dirt over the 24" walls.

Garden bed construction - Large pile of soil

2 units (15 yards) of Nature's Best planting soil for the new garden beds. Description from Lane Forest Products: "

Ingredients
Aged sawdust & bark, compost, potash, silica sand, loam and sand blended with a custom organic fertilizer mix consisting of kelp meal, fish bone meal, blood meal, alfalfa meal, micro and macro nutrients, scrambled eggs, hash browns, side of toast, and bat guano. We have also added "Plant Success" Mycorrhizal fungi for root development."

Garden bed construction - attachment of posts

Kreg Jig in action.

Inside of bed attachment of post to sides. The Kreg jig creates a very clean look and is very strong.

Garden bed construction - post detail

Post detail of new garden beds.

Garden bed construction

Before images of where the new beds are going to be. There will be 4 - 4'x12'x2' cedar beds placed in this area. The old beds in the image will be removed.


Brother Adam working hard drilling holes with the Kreg jig. The jig is a beautiful thing. It makes for a very clean installation. Thanks Susie!


Ducks working hard!



New beds. There will be four total. They are much bigger then I pictured in my head. It's going to take a lot of dirt to fill these things. Plenty of growing space!