Our first garden salad...

Our 1st garden salad!
We enjoyed a nice salad from the garden tonight... baby romaine, broccoli, danvers half long carrots and radishes.

Radishes are my husband's very favorite vegetable from the garden... so tonight I planted a bunch more for him!

I'm beginning to let some of my muscovy ducks into my garden... not the whole herd of them (all 9)... just a few females and a male.  I have to really watch them as they pass their favorite greens... cucumbers... beets... corn...  overall, they're doing a pretty good job gobbling up the hoppers.... but sometimes the greens are just too tempting!

You'd laugh if you heard me out there with them (I am mama duck!)... I'm always telling them... "Eat the hoppers.... Eat the hoppers!"

The Last Garden tour for the 2009 growing season...

Welcome to Shaw Ann from Shawn Ann's Garden! Thanks for following my blog!

The 2009 gardening season is growing to a close... I have truly enjoyed my garden this year... my very first SFG!

I still have lots of tomatoes to process!

Pulled the last of my delicious carrots!

And the rest of my beets...

My fall peas are still producing. They taste so much better than my spring crop!

I also have a few cabbage heads to harvest...

Well, here's my last garden tour video for the 2009 growing season!

Carrots for dinner

Carrots for dinner! I put a beef roast in the crock pot for dinner... along with my garden carrots and some potatoes... and garden onions. It was sooo sooo good!But... I'm kind of sad... because my carrots are almost gone. I planted a 4x4 bed full... next year, I'll need at least 1 4x8 bed filled with these yummy carrots! Can you tell that I love carrots?

Oh... I want to try those juicing carrots next year too! I saw some in the territorial seed catalog... sorry, can't remember the name. Will have to look it up.

Cabbage & Carrots Harvest

Can't wait to try this cabbage! Not sure how I'll make it... although coleslaw is sounding kind of good....

We enjoyed these carrots with roasted chicken and garden beets (not pictured) last night!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions on how NOT to lose my next planting of tender broccoli plants. I think that I will order some row covers. Sigh.....

Carrots, Broccoli and Fall Crop update

A look around the Wyoming countryside!

This is a photo of the canal above our new home. In the background is the old metal water tower and the Bighorn Mountains. Do you see those storm clouds?

We're having quite a storm tonight complete with driving rain & wind. My garden has turned a deep vibrant green!

For supper last night I pulled enough carrots for all of us to enjoy! I'm wishing that I planted a 4x8 bed of carrots instead of 4x4... I LOVE CARROTS!!!
My 3 broccoli plants are now producing delicious side shoots. This little head that I harvest is almost as big as the main head that I cut back in July! Aaron ate the whole thing himself... he loves broccoli!

Fall Crops Update

1. I seeded broccoli in cups in the greenhouse (located inside on my 2nd floor porch). Most have germinated.

2. Replanted carrots in the empty carrot bed.

3. 4 squares of bush beans have emerged and have their first set of leaves.

4. I planted Sugar Ann peas last week... haven't germinated yet.

I plan to extend my growing season for... well... as long as possible by using hoop houses over my beds. THAT is an exciting benefit of SFG!

Eliot Coleman has a very interesting book on winter gardening... note to self: Buy it SOON!

It's video Friday... our first carrots!

First harvest of carrots!

I couldn't help myself... I just had to see what was going on down there... oh boy do they taste and smell wonderful!

It's Video Friday!!!! Come on by for a tour of my garden!

part 1..... part 2...

Whole garden photo update...

Rain!
Boy, the weather has been strange this spring/summer here in Wyoming! We've gotten so much rain!

It's raining tonight which is awesome because my beds were getting a bit dry.

Now, on average... our area gets 6" of moisture a year. We're in a high desert. I think that we've already gotten that 6" plus... The countryside is really getting green!

Loving SFG...

I am so enjoying my garden! I love to walk around my boxes and see the growth of my plants! I'm sooo happy that I decided to do Square Foot Gardening (SFG) this year! It sure was a LOT of work getting it set up... but I've pulled less than 40 weeds so far this season... and THAT is just incredible!!!

Whole Garden photo...

Here's the whole garden picture that I took this afternoon from a 2nd floor window.

I think that I can safely put away all my plastic sheeting now... although... typically we a 1 or 2 hail storms in June.

In the 2nd row (front to back) you can see my Wando Peas (a bush variety)... don't they look organized?

Yukon Golds... update

My Yukon Gold Potatoes are starting to flower. They're getting taller and the plants are filling out. If you look at the garden overview photo, my potato box is the 3rd one on the right... my onion box is just to the left of it there in the middle.

When are Potatoes Ripe?

I was just over to Skippy's Garden where Kathy has a great post on potatoes... "When are Potatoes Ripe." I found it to be very helpful! Thanks for that great post Kathy!

Click HERE for detailed information on growing Yukon Golds. I read that they're ready in about 90 days... so that would be August for me.

Sprouting...

-Carrots (a whole 4x4 bed!)

-Beets (4 squares)

-Radishes (too many squares to count!)

-Collards (2 squares)

I was so inspired by the beautiful Collards that so many of you are harvesting... that I planted 2 squares and they're sprouting up!

Harvest...

We continue to enjoy salad greens and some radishes... and a few onions that we plucked because I double planted a few squares.

Gardening Friends!

Love your comments! It's so much fun to read your garden blogs! I'm learning so much!

I'm soaked and muddy...

Here I am in my favorite, most comfortable shoes... my Keen sandals... all covered in mud!

Got my 8" deep carrot box filled

with Mel's Mix and with Carrots! Yeah!!! I planted a variety that gets about 5"

long.

Also got about 1/2

of one of my 4x8 boxes filled!!! Making good progress here!

Look... a blossom on one of tomato plants! Whooo hooo!!!!

Waiting... ever so patiently to be "grounded" are my 30 Roma Tomato plants.

Out playing in the rain...

I'm on a mission... a gardening mission...

My mission is to get my remaining 4 boxes filled with Mel's Mix this week!!!

So... with that in mind... I was out playing in the light rainfall and filled what will be my carrot box! Yeah!!!

You should see my shoes! All caked with mud!

Those of you who have traversed this journey... know that... it is NO small feat to accomplish this goal...

For local readers of my blog, who may still be filling their boxes or looking for Mel's Mix ingredients...

Try here:

Peat: The Lumber yard on Main St in Lovell has 4cu' bales of peat for under $7!!!!

Vermiculite: The coop in Powell has it for under $27/bag for 4cu'!

Today, mix... mix... Mel's Mix

With the help of my teenage son, my 4x8 boxes are all built and leveled off!

Today I'm off to the garden to mix mix mix... lots of Mel's Mix to fill boxes!

I mix one shovel full of each Vermiculite, Peat, & Compost into one of the red 18 gallon buckets... then fill my SFG bed... wet it down... and mix up another batch until it's all filled.

I have about 30 Romas that need to get planted. And need to get carrots planted as well!

Planted Mandan Corn

Inspired by Steve, the midnight gardener, I worked out in the garden tonight till about 11pm. What a beautiful night!

I mixed up enough Mel's Mix to fill 2 4x4 boxes... I'd say by moon light... but couldn't see the moon in the star filled sky... I dragged out one of our construction lights and worked and worked (loving it of course...)!

On a recent trip to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, MT, I purchased some heirloom Mandan corn seed at the gift shop. Not knowing any about it... including whether it was just ornamental or edible... I decided to do some research... more info on this link.

So... after learning that it was a staple of the Mandan Indians... I planted a whole 4x4 bed with it!!! Look at those beautiful colors!

I'll plant another 4x4 with sweet yellow corn... maybe tomorrow... I've got the box all filled with Mel's Mix!!

Still to get planted... CARROTS...

My SFG grows...

I was thinking today how much I'm enjoying all the time that I've spent creating my very first SFG. Must be the creative aspect of it all!

Isn't the process of planting seedlings... then transplanting... or directly planting seeds into the SFG... AMAZING? I love watching those tender plants grow!!!!

I decided to put my SFG in my front yard of our new (still in the finishing stages) home. And it's really taking shape! So far... I have 6 4x4 boxes filled and 1 4x8 filled!

In front of the cottonwood trees on the East/South side, I've placed a 2x2 bed with a Giant Pumpkin plant. I hope to spread the vine around the tree.

I have 3 other Giant Pumpkins to plant, each in their own 2x2 box. I thought that it would be so much fun to see 400-500 pound pumpkins growing across the front of our property... So now I have to decide where they will be placed.

Planned for this week

Build it/Mix it/Fill it

-build 3 more 4x8 boxes **update** DONE 5/25!

-build 3 more 2x2 boxes **update** DONE 5/25!

-build flower beds???

-mix... mix... mix... more of Mel's Mix

-fill remaining boxes

-build trellises

Plant

-corn

-carrots

-Romas

-watermellon

-cantalope

-giant pumpkin plants

-sunflowers

-black eyed susans

-daisy plants

I hope to get the rest of my garden planted this week! I'm under the gun to get all this done because the 1st week in June I have to begin tiling bathrooms in our new home!