Tag Archives: garden

Garden Harvest

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gardendinerMary, Mary, quite Contrary how does your garden grow? It’s time for a gardening wrap-up! Is anything on your dinner plate home-grown? The carrots and potatoes shown were harvested this week. Mmmm yum.

We grew carrots, onions and garlic in the front flowerbed. Carrots pretty much took over the world. They bullied the garlic out of getting enough sunlight so those heads are marble-sized. Otherwise, the onions held their own and are relaxing in our crisper. We have a LOT of juicy sweet carrots. I got to bring some to my quilting friends last night at mini-group!

First Corn

The backyard had pumpkin plants that died, watermelon that thrived, potatoes in tire planters where we couldn’t tell if they were making tubers or not, and corn that was quite popular with the wildlife. You can see some of the troubles we had with the corn in this post. Some of the plants recovered and we put more seeds to ground. The corn was delicious, especially fresh from the field straight to the pot. Unfortunately, we lost over half the ears to birds. Apparently, everybody likes corn.

tatobucket

Now I can tell you about THE POTATOES!!!!!!! We harvested the potatoes on Wednesday from the tires. Remember the tire planters? I was scared that we wouldn’t find any tubers. The plants have been growing fine all summer out of the top of the tires but that wasn’t any indication that underground things were okie-dokie. I was so excited to dig potatoes out of the dirt that I didn’t get any photos of that process. A video probably would’ve been more appropriate anyway because my husband was giggling at me exclaiming “tatohhhhs” every time I found another grouping.

hosewashingThese yukon gold potatoes are the BEST for mashed potatoes. Once they were all harvested and washed, the lot weighed in at 23 lbs.

I’m thinking about next year’s garden as I sew the binding on this round robin quilt. Tomatoes are in order. I’d like to start some asparagus plants too, though they can’t be touched for three years until established. My husband and I have also been talking about sowing some cold-weather crops, since the winter is so mild here. Broccoli and peas are on that list. I think we’re hooked on gardening!

handquiltingrr

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Open Your Ears (Of Corn)

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I picked the first few ears of corn from the backyard this morning! Ooooh I’m excited. Couldn’t quite believe that they were done and unharmed so I opened one fully and took some leaves off the husk of the others. Look how pretty they are on the bale of hay. Looks like we’re on a real farm and everything.
First CornOf course, we’re not on a farm. Our neighbor’s over that fence behind the cornstalks. Still, we have a nice little plot going and it’ll continue to produce corn for weeks to come. Backyard CornfieldMy in-laws are coming over today so my husband has asked that I wait to eat the corn. That way we can share with them. Waiting’s hard. I’m sure they’ll be delicious!

We’re also growing carrots, onions, garlic, watermelon and potatoes. The carrots are yummy… but don’t last long enough to take a photo. Even if I run, by the time I get the camera there’s only a carrot top left. Fresh carrots are sweet! The rest of the foods aren’t yet ready. I’ll keep you updated. 🙂

Break for Tire Gardening

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After spending an hour looking for my new rotary blade packages, I found this in my center desk drawer. It was so smart of me to put all the new blades in one easily accessible container. Just wish I’d remembered doing it before the big search.

RotaryBlades

So I decided it was time to take a break and get some sunshine. I did a bunch of weeding and checked on the food crops we’re growing, including potatoes. Did you know that you can grow potatoes in old tires? Here’s how we’re doing it.

PotatoPlanterWe painted the tires white with cheap spray paint. The quality doesn’t matter, just trying to change the color so the tires don’t heat up as much in the sun. Then we planted the seed potatoes inside them. My husband and I aren’t very good at remembering to water our garden, so we rigged up a drip sprinkler system. That’s what the tubes are you see in the photographs. TirePlantersAs the potatoes grow, we’ll cover them with hay. Not dirt, hay. The roots grow in the dirt where we planted but the plant with the spuds will start growing above ground. Hay from a feed store will block the light and add structure for the plants to grow in.

PotatoSeedlingHere’s one of the potato plants now. When it’s taller than the tire, we’ll stack another tire on top. The stacks might be four or five high by harvesting time. Tire shops have to pay to have their old tires carted away. So our local shop is more than happy to donate them to us. PumpkinWe’re growing other food crops, too. This little guy’s a pumpkin.

CornThe corn grown from seed outside is doing well. We tried starting some inside, but they didn’t survive the transplanting. 
Carrots and Garlic

Carrots and garlic grown side-by-side. 

Alright, now that I’ve gotten a bit of sunlight and spent time with growing things, it’s time to cut some more fabric… with a fresh blade.