This update may be late for the August Challenge, but documenting what goes on here at the farm is my reason for staying active on #hive, so here we go.
The weather this year has been one of the craziest years we have experienced since we moved here almost eight years ago. For weeks extreme heat had us sweating bullets before noon. By midday, the place to be was indoors with the air conditioner doing its thing. Then, we'd have rain that would swell rivers and streams above their banks.
I wasn't sure how things in the garden would go while we were on vacation. Would the crops drown or would they be scorched by the time we returned? To my delight #Mother #Nature must have provided just the right mix of rain and sunshine. Upon our return on August 8th from the Jersey Shore the garden was exploding with veggies.
The pics of our garden in this post were all taken weeks ago, you should see them now.
Here are some of the radishes we grew, the best crop ever. As well as they grew we hope to sow some more seeds in a few weeks when the weather starts to cool down. When it comes to pests in our garden slugs are by far the worst. Radishes are not a favorite of many folks, but those slimy little buggers love them. This was one of the first ones I picked and how I figured it, some for the slug and some for my mug.
Harvesting garlic is always fun. This year we planted both softneck and hardneck garlic. Robin uses it in many of her dishes.
I hope we don't use all the garlic with all of the cucumbers we'll be turning into pickles this year.
To this point, we have made 17 quarts of pickles and they still keep coming. We make a refrigerated pickle and in about two weeks they are ready to munch on. There is no better feeling than to have most of the ingredients for making pickles produced here on our farm including the Maple Syrup made months before.
Amending the soil in the potato bed may have done the trick, but one never knows what lies beneath the soil until a tuber is unearthed. This pick was taken a week or so before we did the following.
The very first stalks I pulled out, were produced from a single red potato seed and this is what I saw. From there on things only got better.
When we finished collecting the spuds, we were amazed when their combined weight reached 115 pounds. Before this year our best crop produced 85 pounds.
While on vacation last year #farm-mom fell in love with Collard greens prepared Southern style.
This collard green recipe is LOADED with flavor! Their dark green leaves and stems are full of vitamins and minerals. Collard greens are rich in iron, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and vitamins A, C, & K. They also contain fiber to aid digestion and lower cholesterol. Not to mention they are also full of antioxidants.
Here we are again talking about slugs.
Cabbage is obviously also part of their diet. After making this head uneatable even for me, I decided to let the slugs have their way with it, hoping to keep them away from the other heads. So far this strategy is working.
We've been eating Romaine lettuce for about six weeks now and there are no signs that things will change anytime soon.
Tomatoes are everywhere.
When are they ever going to ripen? The only tomatoes that have made it to the salad bowl so far have been the Cherry tomatoes. This is how it usually goes, no tomatoes until the third week of August, and then ripen at a rate where you can't consume them all. Oh well, I guess we'll be making some tomato sauce again this year.
Planting only two summer squash and one yellow squash this year is yielding plenty of this versatile veggie. Sometime today we're planning on making some zucchini bread.
Some of the other veggies we grew this year include peas which we will be planting again as the weather cools down, carrots which we've been juicing the stalks, and my all-time favorite, beets.
I don't know what's happening with the beets as they are not as healthy as in past years. 😥
As I mentioned in an earlier Garden Journal Challenge we finally have apples, lots of them.
About two weeks ago I picked one and gave it a try. Knowing they were not ready to harvest then, I got what I expected, a little sour and hard. More time should resolve that issue. We may not be able to do much with the miniature crabapples, but these apples should make some great applesauce and apple pies.
Before heading to the Jersey Shore on the 2nd of August we picked up #farm-mom's best buddy.
We see her every year when we vacation in Florida and she spends some time with us during the Summer. The way I see it she needs to earn her keep, so having her harvest cucumbers with her pal before heading to the shore evens things up a bite. The two of them look like they aren't working too hard.
