This is a special blog post for our nephew Christian Drochak....he turns 4 years old today.  Happy Birthday Christian!!!

Picking Peaches

We harvested 28 peaches yesterday off our Frost Peach tree.  Many were mature, but not quite ripe, so we've set them out in the house to soften for a couple of days.  Mature fruit have developed the sugars in the fruit, so there are sweet but still firm.  Ripe fruit have developed all their sugars and are soft.  We picked the fruit at the mature stage rather than the ripe stage because we've had problems in the past of ripe fruit falling off the tree on windy days and the dogs eating them before we can.  We've also had problems with the peaches splitting near the stem and earwigs getting in them and eating out the pit.  Last year, there would be 10 earwigs in each large peach.  This year, I put Tanglefoot traps along the trunk of the tree to trap earwigs as they climb up, but a few got past and into one of the peaches.  Also, peaches don't all ripen at the same time, so there are still 15 or so still on the tree.

First attempt at video editing with iMovie...

Parking Strip Veggie Garden

Sunflowers

Scallop Summer Squash

Armenian Cucumber

Baby Watermelon

Acorn Squash

Zucchini- we planted way too many (8).  In three weeks we harvest about 28 large zucchinis.  Given away 18.  Made 6 loaves of bread.  Grilled two.  Made stir fry.  Shredded and froze 15 cups worth.  We bought a freezer for the garage to house our harvest.

Buttercup Squash

Blue Hubbard Squash

A bee doing its thing- early morning is the best time to view them in action

Sunflower and corn

Winter squash covering the dead grass

Terry inspecting his crops

Harvest Time

The garden has grown tremendously since our last post and we've been trying our best to keep up with harvesting and eating, freezing, and giving our bounty away.  

After reading some other garden blogs, I decided to start keeping track of how much we harvest.  I weighed what we harvested yesterday and I made a guesstimate of how much we've harvested so far this season.     

Here's the tally:

7/9:

Beets- 13 oz. (5 beets)

Sugar Snap Peas- 14 oz.

Shelling Peas- 1 lb. (shelled)

Mixed Berries- 1 lb. 8 oz. (Strawberries, Raspberries, Blueberries, Blackberries)

Guesstimate for season so far:

Beets- 3 lb. 13 oz.

Sugar Snap Peas- 1 lbs. 4 oz.

Shelling Peas- 1 lbs. 4 oz.

Baby Bok Choy- 2 lbs.

Green Cabbage- 2 heads

Leaf Lettuce- 3 lbs.

Romaine Lettuce- 5 lbs.

Onions- 1 lbs. 

Broccoli- 12 oz.

Mixed Berries- 4 lbs

Mixed Greens- 2 lbs (Kale, Collards, Chard, Spinach)

Tomatoes- 3 tiny ones so far

We've also been using dill, thyme, parsley, rosemary and oregano from the garden.

Garden Photos:  June 11, 2009

Beautiful Peonies from my parents' garden.  

I had a half-way Martha Stewart moment...

I cleaned off most of my table to get these photos!

So pretty and elegant, I can deal with the ants that keep crawling out of them!

Smells really nice too!

I'm wondering why I didn't plant any in my garden.

Beets- yummy!

Our first sugar snap pea is coming on! 

Broccoli is ready to harvest!

Our corn and squash is growing well in our sod bed.

We built a second sod bed.  We used sod from the spot where the bed is.  Additional sod came from edging the sidewalk.  We had never edged it and it had grown over the sidewalk about a foot.  We're going to plant edamame, okra, and more squash.

It won't be long before we get raspberries.

mmmm.... Blueberries ......

Garden Flower Photos: May 23- June 2, 2009

Our garden is very colorful this time of year- lots of purple, orange, and pink!

Ninebark 'Diabolo' in foreground  

Rosa mutabilis in background

Helianthemum 'Bed Ledi'  (my personal favorite)

Sambuscus 'Black Beauty'

Sambuscus 'Black Beauty'

Lavendar 'James Compton'

Salvia nemerosa 'Amethyst'

Lilac

Salvia 'May Night'

Honeysuckle: Lonicera 'Dropmore Scarlet'

Euphorbia 'Dixter'

Azalea 'Mandarin Lights'

Azalea 'Mandarin Lights'

Rhododendron 'Amber Touch'

I never thought I'd buy a rhododendron, but I had a spot that needed one and this variety was so pretty.

The flower reminds me of a Hawaiian vacation.

The foliage is lush and healthy.

Close-up of Rhododendron 'Amber Touch'

Kitchen Garden- Progress and Pests

Photos from May 23 - June 2, 2009

The garden is growing so quickly these days, I can't believe how much has changed since we last posted some photos.  I'm playing catch up, so here's some pics from a couple weeks ago.

The above photo is of our little greenhouse with some warm weather starts- cucumbers, watermelon, eggplant, peppers, some flowers, and a couple more tomatoes.

I decided it would fun to document some of the pests and diseases we've been encountering this year as well.  The leaf curl on this nectarine leaf is a fungal disease.  We've been pulling off the affected leaves as we see them.  We treated the trees in the winter with a dormant spray to kill the spores, but a few survived.

The holes in this broccoli leaf are from cabbage moth larva.  Those pretty little white moths that fly around mid-day will land on typically the back of the leaves and deposit eggs which hatch out a little green caterpillar.  We had been squishing the eggs as we'd see them, but it's gotten out of control.  There are holes all through our broccoli, cabbage, bok choy and kale.

We set out coddling moth traps in our apple trees because our apples were so full of worms last year it was disgusting.  We've caught 4 or 5 moths so far.  The pheromone in the trap attracts the males and they get stuck.  We're hoping they got trapped before mating with the females.

Beet leaf miner attacks beet leaves, chard and spinach which are all related.  The adult is a little fly that lays white eggs on the backs of the leaves which hatch larva that bore into the leaf.  The larva eventually falls out and buries into the soil.  Supposedly it is only going to be bad in May and June.  We're going to try and plant beets as a fall crop to avoid this time period next time. 

I also set out apple maggot traps.  The apple maggot fly is attracted to red balls that looks like apples.  I also bought the lures that emit an apple scent.  Instead of spreading the sticky goo directly on the ball, I covered the ball with a ziplock bags first for easy cleaning.  We've caught a number of flies, but I'm not sure if they are apple maggot flies.  

Here's our baby bean plants.  A pesky young cat was getting in there and pooping at night, so we laid sticks all around the bare spots to keep him out.  

Romaine Lettuce- so much we've been giving it away.

Dill- smells so good!

Baby nectarines

Baby apples

Baby Tomatoes

Yummy strawberries- with the recent warm weather- we've been getting a little bowlful almost everyday.

Tree onions a.k.a Egyptian walking onions

Bunching onions from last year that are blooming this year