Produce and Jars

 Our mini orchard that we started 3 years ago is giving us a decent crop this year.

I'm so looking forward to next year! 

Prices:
Peaches and Pluots available only this week

Organic Peaches  $1.50 per pound (about 5 medium sized peaches)

Organic Pluots $1.50 per pound (about 3 large pluots)

Organic Zucchini 50 cents per pound

Small bouquet of organic basil, sage, or snippet of rosemary 50 cents each
(the zucchini in the photo is LARGE so the fruit may appear smaller than it is)

I've been busy making jams and have 3 different kinds available. The strawberry has received rave reviews from family and friends. The plum and cherry have also gotten many compliments.

Prices:

Organic plum jam $3

Cherry jam $4

Strawberry jam $3

Each jar is made from local fruit and is a half pint (8 ounces)

Today, Veronica helped feed our hens. Its always a party with her around. :)

Francesca picking cherries

                                           
                                              Our boys and friends pitting cherries for the jam                                              

COMING SOON:

Thompson seedless grapes

More peaches

Dill pickles

Spicy dill pickles

Brandied pears

What's been going on?

There's been a few things going on around here. Jason built his first move-able coop.

It's an interesting design... we're still waiting for the girls to make it a "home".

Jason read that not only do ducks enjoy duck weed, but chickens do too... we have lots of it now.

We have only fished out a small amount from the creek so far and they ate some.
I wouldn't say they went crazy over it though.

Our bigger chicks are living in the garden triangle.

It's smelling better in the house!


The trees are showing some fruit. The first row we planted is 3 years old now.
Maybe it will be a good year, despite some peach curl here and there.

almonds

Bosc pear

May Pride peaches

The vertical garden is in too... been working on weed eating & organic ant control for the fruit trees... the Thompson Seedless and Muscat vines that went in last year are doing great... lavender not so great but a few plants are good. 

That's what's been going on... on the farm!

Waldo The Yellow Tractor

Welcome to my new farm blog. All the posts below this one are farm-type ones I transferred from my personal blog and are all out of chronological order! But from here on we're starting fresh, Fresca!

Vertical and Square Foot Gardening

From May 2009:

Here's the beginnings of our garden this year. We decided to try out square foot and vertical gardening. Check out the source book here:

http://www.amazon.com/Square-Foot-Gardening-Garden-Space/dp/1579548563/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241843919&sr=8-3

The author claims that the pounds of food harvested per square feet are much more than the "typical" gardening. This is the first time I've worked with such an organized garden space. I do say that I like it! We went with two really long 1-square foot rows.

So far I have planted 3 different beans, cilantro, sweet basil, Thai basil, Italian parsley, bell pepper, Italian pepper, serrano, jalapenos, Thai pepper, cantaloupe, watermelon, 2 different cucumbers, a few different tomatoes, carrot seeds, and probably more I am forgetting.

This is just next to the garden, the site of last year's jumbled garden. I still plan on prepping and planting in this "triangle" soon. Here will go the large and sprawling plants such as zucchini, corn, and pumpkin. Plus I will plant sunflowers and a zinnia flower bed.

Here are those said plants, just waiting for more dirt to dig into.

Garden Update

From July 2009:

Here's some photos from our garden this week. The vertical gardening is going pretty well. I like how the veggies are kept off the dirt so they stay clean, mostly bug free, and are easily harvested.

Here is our pumpkin patch in the "triangle" garden area. I know I planted these too close together but I do every year. One year I will learn my lesson. maybe going back and reading my blog garden posts will help!

The cucumbers are the most abundant produce this year so far. These are the burp-less variety. I also have slicing cucumbers. One day this week I picked 9 cucumbers in one day. It seems about every 4 days or so I get a bunch.

Below is our mini-stand of corn with pole beans climbing the stalks. Jason read about this method in a book.

See the bean vine?

Black Beauty Eggplant. I made some eggplant parmesean last week for my first time.

Serrano chile peppers. These are the type of peppers Herdez uses, Jason's favorite jarred salsa. We just got a pressure cooker in the mail today so I will can our own version of Herdez.

Here was some sad news this week. A gopher got to my biggest watermelon plant. So sad... hopefully we smoked him out with a smoke bomb tossed in his tunnel. Here is a pic of the wilted plant. I thought perhaps the drip irrigation wasn't working properly in this square foot. But then I discovered the pile of dirt nearby and a hole.

Here's the watermelon that seemed to be doubling in size almost every day.

Some good melon news... the cantaloupe are doing great! Here are some fuzzy baby fruit...

Here's one quite a bit bigger...

And here's one almost ready for the picking! This is my first year with cantaloupe, watermelon, and cucumbers.

Fragrant sweet basil.

And lookey here... that is not a hose! I found this serpent this morning, just two feet away from me pulling weeds. Yikes! Any tips on how to deter snakes from a lush garden?

Look in the middle of this photo and you will see his slimy little head. Click on any photo to see it larger.

Buon Giorno

From September 2009:

Francesca and I were up at the crack of dawn... here's some pics of our morning in the garden...

There's my best sunflower!

See the moon?

Thai basil

HOT Thai pepper

A ripening Connecticut pumpkin

Vincent joined us in the the pumpkin patch.

Fresca eating a fig from our funky fig tree.

Have a nice day lovelies!