More Veggie Updates 7/23/11

Our outside veggies are growing nicely and some are loving this heat wave we've had the past few days more than others. The broccoli was planted later than hoped for and is just starting to produce heads. It is doing well considering it is a cool weather crop and has some cabbage looper issues.

Here you can see some cabbage looper damage. The little green worms love the brassica family (broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower) of plants and eat the leaves. Once full, they form a cocoon and turn into a little white moth who then lays lots of eggs on the plants and the cycle starts again. We have been picking these off by hand but have not been able to keep up!

We harvested lots of peas on Saturday! Snap peas and shell peas. They have been enjoyed by all and are loved by the kids who pluck them off the vine and eat them raw for a garden snack!

The pumpkins are loaded with blossoms and bees and some nice fruits are forming.

Green peppers are coming along nicely! There are not a lot right now but they are loaded with buds and the plants look really nice.

Our eggplants are blossoming and are starting to form tiny veggies. Unfortunately we also noticed the were seriounsly infested with aphids. We hope to control them before loosing the plants.

We also harvested LOTS of green beans, cucumbers, zucchini, and summer squash on Saturday. It was a full day of harvesting! We will be canning beans this week and enjoying all sorts of fresh ones at meals!

This Weeks Update 6/19/11

This week has been a little slow, we finally got some rain starting last weekend and continuing into this week. This caused our outside work time to be less than it has been. Even though we were not out there working, the little plants were!
Our row of snap peas are looking great, we would like to put up a fence for supporting them soon. In the back of this photo you can see our new compost bin made of bales of straw. We will be collecting plant debris and grass clippings from the field as the summer goes on.

Next to the peas, our green beans, broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are looking good minus a few holes from those pesky little Cabbage Loopers.

We also planted a few herbs, here are our freshly planted basil plants.

Everything in tunnel one is growing great! Our tomatoes are growing bigger and bigger each day! All the support strings were put in place last week so that we can train the tomatoes and cukes to grow up.

Some plants even have open flowers!!

Our little cucumber plants are doing well too, although not as large as the tomatoes, they are still growing more and more each day.

We have been learning lots about managing pests too. Our winter squash had an attack by the Striped Cucumber Beetle. This is one of the very worst, the rest seem to be recovering after daily picking the bugs off and some organic bug killer!

Our rhubarb is looking great since the day we planted it which you can see here. We have only picked enough for a pie or two because we want the roots to develop really well the first year of transplanting.

Construction on tunnel two has been slow but moving along just the same.

By the end of the weekend it was ready for the end walls to be sheeted, next step will be the plastic!

Zack and Emmy are removing soil and rocks from around this boulder we dug up with the tractor in order to plant some nice perennials around it. In the background you can see the newly set out Swallow/Bluebird houses.

We also spent A LOT of time in this patch of earth planting dry beans! Jacobs Cattle and Yellow eye, four rows of each, seed by seed!! Thankfully they are all in now and we will patiently wait for them to sprout out of the ground.

The last photo is of our resident flock of Canada Geese. There are several families with babies that come every evening to munch on the grass in the field. So far no damage to the veggies, we are hoping it stays that way!