Ready For Summer!

We spent the long weekend getting the garden ready for summer.  Evelyn almost has all of the summer plantings in the ground and thanks to Sears finally getting out here to fix the riding mower (after two months of waiting,) I was able to get the rows mulched with grass clippings.  We also got the hose situation all worked out so that we are able to water the garden with just two sprinklers.  Of course, we want to be using drip irrigation and it is definitely on the agenda but we need to save a little to make it possible.  Those drip systems can be pricey.

What follows is a bunch of cool pics.  Enjoy.

Colorful Veggies!

I just got in from harvesting for tomorrow's market at the SDFM, and I was struck by the variety of colors that we are getting right now from the garden.

Carrots an Red Onions

This week we'll have Lettuce mix, New Zealand Spinach, Rainbow Chard, Kale, Green Peas, Beets, Carrots, Purple Top Turnips and a couple of Red Onions. Plus we'll try and have some cherries. The daisies are starting to bloom so there will be some of them in our mixed cut flower bunches. Hope to see you tomorrow!

Purple-Top Turnips

Beets

Rainbow Chard

Red Onions

Home, Home On The Range

My mother and father rolled into town last weekend and "sat a spell."  It was good to see them.  At one point last Saturday afternoon, while I was washing up after the market, Mom said, "I'm going to tell people that if they want to visit North Carolina, May is the month to do it."  The weather has been perfect this spring.  While we've a had a couple of scares with the heat, but the spring has been long, we've had a good amount of rain, and its been really comfortable.

Do, do, do, lookin' out my back door.

Our neighbors winter wheat is starting to turn colors in our front yard and against these beautiful blue skies, the view from the garden is just terrific.  Dad said that the east coast is so different from where they live on the west coast.  Out there, you get really big skies with long horizons, but on the east coast, we essentially live in a forest.  The tree line cuts off the horizon and a long view is rare.  That's one of the reasons I love our place here in Hurdle Mills.  We have a couple of spots where you would think you were in Kansas or California for the views.

I walked that path a hundred ninety,
Long, low time ago, people talk to me

Evelyn has been working really hard on the herb and butterfly garden.  This has been an especially important project that neither of us get enough time for.  This is the side yard that faces the street and there was 200 square feet of despotic ugly attached to the house when we first moved in, that we've since removed.  Underneath the ugly was an old well that was capped and covered with rock and concrete.  Since the demo ("liberation",) we have been using those slabs of concrete and flat rocks to build the path as well as littering the rest of the garden with large rocks and a big hunk of concrete that Evelyn dug out of the dirt.  Evelyn didn't want you to see it but behind those bushes to the left is the remaining pile of rubble.  Anyway, I have gone to calling this the "Ruins Garden" or "Garden of Ruin".  If you have a better name for it, please, leave it in the comments.  Of course, we'll clean it up a bit but it ain't a great priority right now.  Nevertheless, this garden is looking beautiful and totally fits our "shabby chic" way of life.

Beets & Turnips!

We're going to have lots of beets & turnips at the market this week. 

With all the rain we've been having recently the beets have really 

taken off and they look wonderful with lush healthy greens.

Beets

We'll also have salad mix, spinach, romaine lettuce, new zealand spinach, arugula, 

rainbow chard, kale and sugar snap peas. The basil plants are just starting 

to get big enough so we'll bring some of that along with our usual herb selection. 

Asian Lily

These pretty Asian lilies are just starting to bloom 

so we'll have a few of them as well, 

along with our usual selection of mixed bouquets.

What We'll Have at Market and a Couple of Recipes

We'll be at the South Durham Farmers Market again this week, here's what we'll have:

Lettuce Mix

New Zealand Spinach
Prepare it just like regular spinach.

Arugula

Romaine Lettuce

Spinach

New Zealand Spinach -  new this week!

Beets

Turnips

Sugar Snap Peas

Kale

Chard

Herbs

Flowers 

Pottery

Cow Cup!

Here are a couple of links to recipes for what is abundant in the garden right now.

I tried this recipe for Swiss Chard, Spinach and Rice Gratin and it was awesome, I did switch out kale for spinach and used muenster instead of gruyere. I think I used a little more cheese than they had listed. It was really good, both of us went back for seconds!

Swiss Chard, Spinach and Rice Gratin

and Lisa Oakley sent me this recipe for Roasted Beets and Greens. She said it was awesome, I can't wait to try it! I like the idea of using both the beets and the greens in one dish.

Roasted Beets & Greens Recipe

Ladybugs Everywhere!

I've been noticing ladybug babies everywhere lately out in the garden and thought I'd post some photos of them in there very varied stages of life.  Ladybugs are great for the garden, they eat aphids and other pests so we try and encourage them to stay around. When we first moved to this house we had ladybugs all over inside the house, we thought it was a good omen for our garden and that's why we called ourselves Ladybug Farm.

They start off looking like little monsters, 

this one is on a carrot plant.

I've read that ladybug larvae can 

eat up to 400 aphids in 2 to 3 weeks.

They start to look a little more like a ladybug at this stage,
at this point they attach themselves to a leaf
and will emerge as adults in about a day. 

I think this one is emerging from it's shell.

Adult ladybug on basil.

Busy, Busy

Romaine Lettuce

Last Saturday was our first day at the new South Durham Farmers Market. We had a great time and sold out all of our vegetables! It was really great to see the great response to what we grew.  Thanks to everybody that came out last week.  We met a lot of new people and got to chat to a bunch about the veggies, pottery, and the flowers.  We hope we see you again!

We've been crazy-busy out in the garden this week building trellises for the summer veggies, planting seeds and trying to keep the spring crops cool enough so that they don't bolt too quickly. The weather has been tricky lately, with temps climbing into the upper 80's the spring stuff probably won't last as long as we'd like, but right now it looks wonderful! Last night we even had a short hail storm so we ran out to the garden to try and cover the tender greens and got soaked in the process!

Swiss Chard

We'll be at the market again this Saturday with: 

• Lettuce
• Swiss Chard
• Spinach
• Arugula
• Kale
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Carrots
• Beets
• Turnips
• Herbs
• Cut Flowers



Sugar Snap Peas

• Pottery

Trellis for Green Beans