Garden Galore!

Life revolves around the garden here.  To say that Mike's parents are avid gardeners would be a huge understatement.  Their garden is about 75 by 100 feet and until we got here the two of them were the only ones here. They were kind enough to let us use a few rows to plant and care for our own produce.  In addition, they let us care for and harvest 2 rows of strawberries and a row of raspberries (and share the harvest of many other crops).

So far we have enjoyed lettuce, spinach, kale, peas, zucchini, strawberries, beet greens, chard, cucumbers, blackberries,  raspberries, watermelon, carrots, and tomatoes.

Here are a few shots of the progression of our garden this year:

April 22

We started lots of things indoors, including watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, cucumber, tomato, and zucchini.  It warmed up pretty early, so we got them into the ground earlier than usual.  There was one late frost in June, but we were able to cover and save everything.

 May 17

In the foreground of this pic, you can see Mike's parents' cool weather crops.  After that, all the green is potatoes.  They got theirs in before us and it is much better looking than ours.

This is the side of the garden to the right of the picture above it.  I know the shadow is awful in this picture, but you can use your imagination.  These top two rows are our cool weather crops (since this spot, obviously gets some shade): spinach, lettuce, broccoli, beets, carrots, chard, cabbage.  Not nearly as lovely as Mike's parents' side.

 Blackberries in the row on the left, strawberries in the middle, raspberries on the right.  This was before all the berries were caged in to preserve them from the birds.

Our sunny crops are squeezed into these three rows: watermelons, cucumber, cantaloupe, pumpkin, zucchini.  We planted spinach between them while they were small, so we could have plenty for green smoothies.  That is a row of strawberries right behind our rows.

JULY 5

Mike and the kids are harvesting carrots.  Our course we prefer to work in the shade, so here is another terrible shady picture.  You can see the berry structure in this shot though.  It is similar to what Mike built for our garden in Champaign, only much, much larger.  It houses 1 row of blueberries, 1 row of blackberries/boysenberries, 3 rows of strawberries, 2 rows or raspberries, and 1 row of grapes.  It is woooonderful to not have to compete with the birds or crawl under bird netting to pick berries.

The kids dig for treasure (and dinosaur bones) all the time, so digging for carrots was super fun for them, because they actually found a treasure!

 We had all sorts of crazy three-legged carrots and other interesting shapes.

 You can see our lettuce (far left) has gone to seed now that it is hot outside.  We'll do a fall planting soon.

 This is out sunny section.  It has definitely filled itself in to overflowing.  The pumpkins and watermelons are vining all over each other.  We actually pulled a hill of pumpkins out because it was taking over our watermelons.  The strawberries (on the right) are done at this point, as is the asparagas (upper left), which has gone to seed, creating a fun jungle for the kiddos.

 There isn't anything for a size comparison in this picture, put this is one huge pumpkin.  I'm excited to see how much it weighs.  It appears lovely and symmetrical and perfect for a county fair or something!

All the pumpkins we planted came from the same seed packet, but there were apparently two different varieties in the packet.  This one starts out Bert-shaped with green stripes like a watermelon, then gradually turns orange.  The other starts out Ernie-shaped and light yellow, then gets big and orange (like our prize-winner in the other picture.

 I see at least 4 watermelon in the picture above.  Can you find them all?

 The kids know all about planting, pollinating, harvesting, and going to seed.  They like to educate me from what they learn from Grammy.  They found a dead bee, so Grammy is helping them examine it with a magnifying glass.

 Before the berry cage was up, the kids and I made a desperate attempt, in the form of a scarecrow, to save our raspberries from the robins.  I must say that it was the most pathetic-looking scarecrow you ever saw.  You can see it out there with pink pants.  Mike's dad is out there in 100+ degree heat building the berry cage.  I'm pretty sure Mrs. Scarecrow was pretty ineffective, but it was a fun little project.

While we were making her, Eliza excitedly noted, "Mom!  She looks just like you!"  I'm not sure if it was the pink pants or solid physique, but I hope it was the plastered smile on the milk jug head.  Then she said, satisfied and sincerely, "She will surely scare away all those birds!"  Really, I'm flattered.

You can't see her tear-stained face through her smile here, but this was post major meltdown when I tried to put the first zucchini in the food processor.  She couldn't bear the thought of doing that to our poor first fruits.  She said I should have done it when she was in bed so she wouldn't know about it.  She just wanted to save it (she has a hoarder's heart).  She even tried eating it (as you can see by her teeth).  Finally she consented after we took this picture, let her spend a few minutes with the zucchini, and let her plant her very own zucchini plant (which is now bearing).