Right Now . . .

Flowers that say "August" to me, like this Black-Eyed Susan, are starting to bloom around the yard.


We have hit the tipping point where harvesting has begun to far outweight time allotted for garden maintenance. And the weeds . . . they appear to be winning. But that's only when you're looking at the garden from a distance, if you peek between the weeds, you will find great big onions seemingly pushing themselves out of the ground, tomatoes that are at the point of super pale green, getting ready to blush to red any day now. And the sweet corn; the sweet corn makes up for the pitful showing of the green beans.

I haven't done a good job of counting how many dozen ears we have picked, but we know that we have frozen about 25 pint bags of it, eaten a dozen or so fresh, and given a few ears away. And there is still a lot more to pick. So I may be finding new recipes to use corn in this winter, and go more sparingly on the green beans.

The ears may not win any prizes at the county fair, but they're good-sized and sweet, and to us that's all that really matters.

All this preserving seems time consuming, and some days I would like to pretend that there aren't dozens of ears of sweet corn to freeze or pounds of green beans to snap and can, or cucumbers to pickle. To feel footloose and fancy free in July and August, in this household . . . not going to happen. But it all pays off later, when instead of going to the grocery store I just hit up the freezer or shelves in the basement, and have all the ingredients I need to make a nourishing, satisfying meal.

Kitchen Invasion

We've entered the season here on the farm where horizontal space to set something down on in the kitchen is at a premium. This is because pretty much all available space is invaded occupied by produce waiting to be or in some step of being processed or preserved. At the moment we have: a sink full of snapped green beans waiting for the dishwasher to finish sterilizing jars for canning, 6 cabbages waiting to be made into freezer slaw, cole slaw, or whatever other recipes we can find to use it. Yellow squash and zucchini waiting to be  frozen, eaten or sold. You get the picture. And we haven't even hit tomato season yet :)

(This big one was a 6 pounder! We got two meals out of it. Yum!!!)



Outside . . . the sweet corn is getting tall, trying to compete with the neighbors field corn.

The calves search for shade, and good stuff to eat. Here they're enjoying the shade of the apple tree, on a pile of loose hay/grass cuttings we picked up from Ryan's sister's field.

As always, the cherry tomatoes are getting ready to over produce . . . I learned my lesson, and we only planted one of these super stars this year:

While this abundance can be overwhelming when it comes to cooking and preserving . . . in the long run it's worth it. Healthy, homegrown food, just waiting for its turn at our table. So very, very blessed.



In the Growing Business

Here in our corner of the world, we've got some serious growing going on. As in vegetables, weeds, berries, and poultry.


After a slow start, our Cole crops and peas have taken off, and as they are wont to do, are all producing copious amounts at the same time. So there is a constant flow of some kind of vegetable in our fridge waiting to either be made into supper or cut up, blanched, and frozen for suppers later this year.

Our first couple years of gardening together, our broccoli wasn't much to get excited about. Even this year, we set almost 20 plants in the ground, and lost almost half of them. But the half that survived are going gangbusters, thank goodness! We eat a lot of broccoli around here:

Last week, I dug a few potatoes to have new potatoes for supper. Mostly just to see what was hiding out under all those hills in the garden:

The short row of early planted potatoes that these came from is already dying back this week. Which was kinda our intent, to have a red potato crop to dig and eat when green beans started coming on.


Speaking of . . . never mention in front of a vegetable plant how very dependable that plant is, and how you always have so much produce from that plant, etc. , etc.  It will turn and laugh at you! Not literally, but a couple of weeks ago I was saying that about our green beans. Now three-quarters of our green beans are infected with some fungus or bacteria and are losing leaves. And while still showing that they will make a comeback, and even putting on flowers and pods. They will be behind, and less this year.  Not matching the new potato harvesting plan I had thought, or my predictions about how you can always count on green beans to produce if nothing else.


I mourned the end of strawberry season, which seemed short, and not nearly bountiful enough. Though really can there ever be enough strawberries? Luckily black raspberry season was right on its tail, and the weather that didn't really work for strawberries seems to have done well by raspberries. We have picked several quarts over the last couple of weeks, and for the first time in a few years I made some black raspberry freezer jam:

Believe it or not I did sieve some of the seeds out of the pulp before I made it into jam; though you wouldn't guess by looking at those jars. There are still a lot of berries out there to be picked, but they are drying up fast with this hot weather and no rain.

3rd Official Day of Summer

This post was really supposed to happen yesterday, but due to various camera/photo issues, I decided to quit and try again the next day. Hopefully my photography vibes are more in tune today.

We are to the last of our June roses; the pink climbing roses that wreath the kitchen porch trellis:

They are a bit past their prime in this photo. Most of them faded and a little bug eaten. When the blooms first open they are almost hot pink, fading to baby pink after a couple of days. And the bug eaten issue is just part of the general beetle plague that has descended upon our landscape. Not Japanese beetles, though they are just as voracious, these are little brown and black beetles that are about the same size as the Japanese, but not the right colors. And they won't be here for long. We had the same thing last year, and luckily it's only a couple of weeks and then they are gone. Until this time is over, Sevin dust is much more of a friend than we like it to be, and contact with beetle poop is an every time you go outside occurrence.


Pictures of the garden this time a year are always so pretty:

Everything is pretty well weeded. At least for the next day or so. Once the rain and cloudy skies let up, we're in trouble. It's easier to stay on top of weeding because right now harvesting and preserving time is at a minimum. That time will end soon. And then its a question of weed between the rows or do something now before these tomatoes turn to mush on the kitchen counter. You can guess what happens. Though we really, really want to work on reducing the weed seed load of our garden soil this year. Which means catching weeds before they go to seed. We've mulched in several areas, and are trying to work at running the hand plow between rows as often as possible, or hoeing and hand weeding where required. If it would dry out for 2 minutes, that would be helpful.


On the animal front, baby chicks and turkeys are growing well. Starting to become curious and aggressive. Ready to be in outside pens.  We kicked the hen turkeys off the next because we found out they had broken all their eggs, and thus weren't incubating anything! They moped for about a day, and then got over it.


Calves and pigs are growing well. Getting ready to build up our hay supply to keep the calves on hay for a couple of weeks while we block off the pasture and let the grass grow back up tall. Which they hate, but it keeps our grass from getting ate down to the quick.


Other than that, we're just ready for a little bit more moderate weather pattern. With sunshine and warmth, and the occasional rain shower, appropriately timed, of course. The constant stream of rain and storms, thumbs down.

Or at least that's what this brocolli plant said. Broken off at the base by Tuesday night's gusty storm, just as it was getting ready to form a flower head . . . of course.  


Time to go pick some berries, and get my daily dose of beetle poop.

A Little Lost

Yesterday morning I was letting Checkers out on her tie out before I closed the house up and went to the grocery store. It is not unusual for her to go a little nuts if she catches the scent of one of our outdoors cats on the porch, steps, or landscaping. But she was going pretty crazy, as if the cat itself was hiding under the buttercup bush. The cats don't usually stick around and hide though, if a dog is in the picture. I glanced under the bush seeing what looked like an extra rock in the landscaping border, and thinking it was about the right size to be a baby bunny.


So I put Checkers in the house, bend down, and push the branches of the buttercup back to get a better look. Not a bunny, not a rock, not a cat,  but a . . .

TURTLE! Friends, we live a half to three-quarters of a mile from the nearest creek, wetland or river. How and why did we end up with not a forest-loving box turtle, but a water-loving painted turtle hanging out by our front step? I have heard of female turtles walking quite a ways away from their home to lay their eggs, but really??? We don't have any water for babies when they would hatch. I think this turtle got a little lost.


So I put her in a bucket, and carried her down the road to the creek, and set her a little ways from the water's edge. Pointed away from the road, obviously. Hoping that if she felt the need to climb away from the water she would just go up the hill into the woods, and not turn around towards the road.


Checkers and I took a walk this morning. No smashed turtle on the road. So far, so good.

Strawberries and Roses

Right now, the highlights of these early June days . . .


Strawberries:

and Roses . . .

They make the weed, mulch, mow cycle a little bit more enjoyable :)


What little joys are you finding in your early June days?

Around the Farm

Around the farm, we've had a little bit of everything . . .

Ryan saved this gorgeous cecropia moth from the barnyard, where we were pretty sure one of the chickens would find it and think that it was quite a treasure to parade around with.  As slow as it was moving it was either at the very beginning or end of its short life, pumping its wings in a slow motion version of flight.

Most people don't think about there being moths in Indiana the size of one's hand. I can count on my fingers the number of times I've seen one of these. They seem almost otherworldly compared to the small, simple critters we are used to seeing congregate around our porch lights.


Otherwise, it's just hanging out with the barnyard critters . . .

As you can see, the pigs are growing quite well. And enjoying every chance they get to roam the pasture, and get a good back scratch. And take a good wet, muddy bath when the weather gets hot . . . even if the water pan is not quite big enough:

A few weeks ago we kicked the turkey hens out of their separate building because even though they were laying eggs, they showed no signs of going broody. Now they're both broody, at the same time, sharing custody of about 15 eggs . . . in the dog house in the middle of the pasture where all the other birds can go in and out at liberty. But they are not to be detered from their goal of motherhood evidentally . . .