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!"

Harvesting Broccoli...

Garden Fresh Broccoli... YUM!

I started harvesting my broccoli this week.  It tastes SO good!  It's so much better than grocery store broccoli!

Woohoo... I finally get to participate in Daphne's Monday Harvest Reports!

Our "free range" Muscovy Ducklings are almost 6 weeks old!  Here's a photo that I just snapped... they're hiding under my truck in the shade. 

Preparing Broccoli for freezing

Well, I just cut some beautiful side shoots of Broccoli. I decided to preserve it by freezing.

But, I had never done it before... so I googled... and found this awesome reference: Preparing Vegetables for Freezing.

I will also put this link in my reference section on the right side bar.

Got a bucket of tomatoes to process still!

Garden Overview photo

Harvested some more beets today. Will enjoy them tomorrow with Sunday dinner!

Here's an overview photo of my SFG.

My beautiful baby broccoli seedlings that I transplanted... didn't survive... they got eaten... sigh....

I was thinking that if I collect gallon milk jugs and cut out the bottoms that I could use these to protect my transplanted seedlings... Anyone else do something like that?

Now for some garden blog reading... got to get caught up!

Sunflowers blooming, tomatoes turning RED!

I LOVE Sunflowers!!! Love them!!! Look at this beauty!

And this one... just blooming! Love it!!!!

Oh my gosh... the "side shoots" on my broccoli plants are producing heads BIGGER than the main heads that I enjoyed in July!

I can't decide when to harvest this cabbage. It's a first timer for me! And then... I have to decide what I'm going to do with it!!!

Do you see what I see? Red... well... almost RED! Some of my tomatoes are starting to ripen up! YEAH!!!!

Sorry to be away for a while...

I've been busy mudding sheetrock at our new house.

You can see our new home in the background of the yellow sunflower. I'm working really hard to get a bathroom mudded... primed... and painted so that I can THEN... do the tiling... and hubby can install THE TOILET!

To read more about my other GRAND ADVENTURE, pop on over to that blog. I officially invite you!

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!

Wordless Wednesday... My precious babies

Pea bed replanted

A big welcome to Warren Baldwin! Thanks for following my blog!!!

My dreams for pint jars filled with delicious peas.... dashed... I got my plants in the ground way too late. But that's OK... it's because I was setting up my SFG.

Pea Notes:

Plant peas early next year. Start in March and have a cover ready.

TO DO: Start a fall crop of Sugar Ann Peas (45 days) mid August.

In that 4x4 box today I planted:

-4 squares beets

-4 squares broccoli

-4 squares round carrots

-4 squares bush beans

Empty squares...

I am just totally loving Square Foot Gardening!

Empty squares...

-Harvested a few squares of Yukon Golds and more will be coming out soon.

-Harvested a few squares of radishes.

-My lettuce bed is getting empty...

Planting more...

Today I planted more carrots & radishes.

-planted 2 squares of round carrots

-planted 2 squares of white tipped radishes (don't know how these will do with the heat)

Thinking about a fall/winter crop...

-broccoli

-over winter carrots???

When I had a row garden I felt totally overwhelmed with weeds and plants... and produce. But having my garden broken down into 1 foot by 1 foot squares really makes all the difference!

Where is my camera??? My Harvest begins slowly...

I am so missing my camera... it's in a bag that I put somewhere... I'm so missing sharing my garden photos with you!!!! Got to find that bag..

Harvest News...

Broccoli... I harvested 4 smallish heads of broccoli the other day. We've eaten two of them in a salad. They taste totally different from store bought broccoli. Milder... Darn... wish that I had planted lots of broccoli so that I could freeze some for the future. Well... hence my garden adventure of learning...

Yukon Golds... I roasted some of the "baby gourmet yukon gold" potatoes that I harvested the other day. They were FANTASTIC!!! Even my son who doesn't particularly care for potatoes, had a second helping! They went perfectly with my beef roast!!!

Leaf Greens... Last night I harvested another basket of leaf greens (my 2nd planting).

Tomatoes... My tomato plants continue to bush out... and have lots of flowers on them! I spied many baby tomatoes last night!!! I'm soooo excited!!!!

Peas... Tender, sweet peas are coming on! We picked some last night to go in the salad... and a few we just popped in our mouths! Aaron said they were good.

Green beans... little beans are appearing! Aaron (age 11) gave them his stamp of approval last night as he nibbled on one!

Strawberries... We're getting to the end of our strawberries. Oh did we enjoy eating fresh, sweet.. and sometimes tart strawberries!!! We got lots this year for the very first time... but jam DIDN'T get made. We just enjoyed eating them fresh too much! As I harvest the last of them, they will go into the freezer for fruit smoothies!

Raspberries... We spied a few red raspberries yesterday. Plop... straight into our eager mouths they went! We want more.... MORE!!!

We're having a terrible time with grasshoppers in the raspberry patch again this year. Guess I'm going to have to buy some DE.

Found it!!! Just found my camera! Yeah... will post photos soon!

More later!!!

No more Onions Aaron!

Welcome Red & Green! Thanks for following my blog!

Baby Romaine... looking good!
After I read Granny's blog post earlier today about all the stuff she was getting done... I thought that I'd better kick it in gear!

So... out to the garden this afternoon!

Popping Corn planted...

Finished filling my last 4x4 box and planted some hull-less popping corn! This should be a neat experience... never planted popping corn before... but my family LOVES popcorn!

Flower Boxes...

I have a few smaller boxes that I made up from scrap wood that I will use for flowers. I have Shasta Daisies and Black Eyed Susans sprouting in the inside greenhouse. It's really time to plant them! So will need to get a bit more soil mixed up.

Mel's Mix... My Mixing Station

Here's a photo of my Soil mixing station. I picked up the big red silicone (I think) buckets at Costco. I put my compost mixture in the wheel barrow, slice open a brick of Peat Moss, and dump about 1/3 bag of Vermiculite in one of the red buckets.

Then I dump a shovel full of each component into the middle red bucket... and... mix... mix... mix... then repeat until bucket is filled!

My Helper Today

My son Aaron, age 11, helped me today. I had to keep shooing him out of the onion bed!

Aaron planted 4 broccoli plants and 4 marigolds tonight. Broccoli is one of his favorite veggies... well... maybe 2nd to onions...

BUGS Update...

As I was watering my SFG, I found hoppers... GRASSHOPPERS... little ones... but I am concerned because last year we had hoppers really bad... they ate the folliage from my raspberry bushes! And munch on my Hollyhock leaves... bad... bad... hoppy bugs!

So I googled... and found out that Grasshoppers do not like Cilantro! So tonight I planted bunches of Cilantro in my beds! I went right down the middle of my 4x4 and 4x8 beds with it... running along one of string dividers. I love cilantro... so... it'll work for me!

And I read about putting a molasses/ water mixture in cups to catch them... so I added some cups of this stuff in some of my beds. I caught bunches and bunches of grasshoppers with this mixture last year.

Question...

Do you have a grasshopper solution?