Tomatoes and Eggplants

We had to hoist the eggplants up and the tomatoes are outgrowing the cages.  Will the tomatoes be ripe in time though?

         

Beans now

I have neglected the blog for about a month but we are back.  The beans are now almost ready to pick.  We will harvest some beans over the weekend.  Here is the same plant:

Goooood Morning Bean

Yesterday the bean just popped out of the dirt, today ready to face the world.

First Sweet Potato

Yikes, not quite there yet.   We pulled out one sweet potato because we were curious how they were coming along.  It felt really light.  Sweet Potatoes are usually dense and heavy.  This is the inside of the potato, not much substance there.  We are going to water them more and give them another month or so and try again.   They smelled really nice though, just like Thanksgiving.

New Garden

We are expanding our garden this fall.   Part of our backyard will now be our new garden.  Here are the kids digging up the grass and helping Mark create this new garden space.  We had to relocate two avocado trees and I hope they survive.  I think the banana tree is a goner.   It is just not practical to plant a new tree in August.

Still clinging to life

Bush Beans

This weekend Mark and Lexi began planting bush beans in the front.   Bush beans are regular green beans.  They are so good when they are fresh.  We had some from the Flowers Prairie farm in Michigan this summer.  Check out Bandit, the happy dog.  (shout out Cheryl and Laura....yummy beans)

Here is a bean plant just beginning its journey into my belly.    They grow very fast.  I'll post the same plant tomorrow.

Caterpillar

We bought some heirloom tomato sets from Moon Valley Nursery.  They were sitting on our kitchen table and something was eating them.   I found one of these boogers on the stem.   Hopefully they survive.

Sweet Potatoes

Just about the only things growing in the garden right now are sweet potatoes and eggplants.  The sweet potatoes were an experiment and they are growing incredibly well.  We got them in a basket and they never got eaten.  Hint:  sweet potato fries are a good way to use them and you can bake them.   I never did get around to this and they began sprouting so we threw them in the garden underneath a tree and they have taken off.   These will definitely make an appearance in the store since we don't eat too many of them and we should have a lot.

Broccoli

It doesn't get any fresher than that.  My cousin told us a story about a friend who really likes fresh corn on the cob.  He went out to the field with a Coleman stove, peeled an ear of corn and cooked it still attached to the plant.  We were going to do that for Mason but he likes his broccoli raw.  We have had good luck with broccoli and you can eat the leaves too.  I admit I haven't tried to cook them yet.  We had too much Swiss Chard this year and I couldn't even keep up with that.

Lexi the Locavore

Lexi the Locavore    Grand Opening Fall 2011

Lexi Lou's Store

Lexi will have her store up and going this fall  and I am going to log the whole experience.  Lexi is  six  and the biggest busy body ever.   We bought her this store so she can sell our extra flowers, herbs, and vegetables. 

Picture shortly

She and I built the store from the kit on Christmas day last year.   Yes that is real produce.  Mark and I had to buy it all too.  We'll have to work on her pricing before we get out there.  She knows what organically, home grown vegetables are worth.  Still we can't charge $1 each for potatoes.   We were going to begin in the spring  (2011).  It is too bad we didn’t because we had a killer year in the garden.   There was too  much going on at work but that is another story. 

Next month we will plant  the fall garden  and I will blog all about what we will be planting and how it is going.  We just planted a banana tree a few weeks ago but that is not  going well so far.  I don’t blame the tree, it is really hot right now.   Hopefully it will survive the summer.  I’ll keep you posted.  We are also transplanting the avocado trees.  They were planted last year (I think) and they are doing pretty well.    Mark is going to put them on the side of the house so they only get morning sun.  

They will have good company back there with the plum tree (doing awesome) and the grapevines which are springing up everywhere you look.   We missed most of the grapes this summer because we were  gone but I did eat a few and they were good.  (Pinot Noir grapes but they taste like tiny table grapes).   The vines are so easy to grow and so green and lush.  I don’t know why more people don’t grow grapes here.   They do have seeds which some people don’t like and which freaks kids out at first but they are tasty and sweet.  I should use the leaves and make stuffed grape leaves sometime.  (I will)