Sunday, July 29, 2018

What's Growing In The Field Garden

It's the time of year when the garden seems to be busting out all over.  The harvest is starting, and it seems something is ready to pick and process nearly every day.  Yesterday I made my first picking of shell peas, have them shelled, blanched and in the freezer.  Good feeling!  While I was sitting at the table shelling the peas, Papa Pea commented that he thinks fresh frozen peas are our favorite vegetable during the winter months.  I agree. 


These are the three sixteen foot long pea trellises in the field garden.  I plant on either side of each trellis.


Here are half of the green cabbages.  The others are farther on down the row.  I went easy on the green cabbages this year as we seem to prefer the red ones.


This is the row of the red cabbages.  The red never seem to grow quite as big as the green ones, but that's just fine.  Also, they're a little slower than the green ones to develop heads.


I planted on either side of only one sixteen foot trellis of pickling cucumbers this year as I still have an ample supply of bread and butter pickles, so I'll make only dill pickles this year.  They've been slow to germinate and get growing big and tall, but I think they'll make it with no trouble.


The Brussels sprouts are coming along nicely, and we should have a good crop.  There are eighteen plants in this row.


I squeezed four "leftover" Brussels sprout plants and two red cabbages  that I couldn't fit anywhere else in this space.


Lots of blossoms showing on both the green and yellow bush beans, but I still haven't found any beans yet.


On the right is a twenty foot row of potatoes I planted from "old" potatoes left over from last year's crop.  (There's a big cosmos plant in the forefront of the row that was a volunteer from last year.  It was healthier looking than the ones I started inside and transplanted so I couldn't bear to pull it out.)  I haven't seen one single blossom on this row of potatoes.  I've never had potato plants that didn't blossom, but I understand they will still produce potatoes.  We hope.

I usually plant a row of cosmos flowers because they make such nice bouquets.  These on the left of the picture are just starting to blossom.  They look a little denuded in the pic 'cause I'd just picked some to have in the house.



These are two rows of sunflowers.  The taller ones in the back are starting to show their pretty heads and add so much to the field garden.  The shorter, bushier ones in the front haven't opened up yet.  They're more of a bronze color, smaller and well-suited for cut bouquets.

That's most of what I've got planted and growing in the field garden.  At this point, everything is looking purdy good!

14 comments:

Vera said...

Your brassicas are looking good.....ours got decimated with flea beatle last year, so I think we can't grow them during the summer months because of this pest.

I like the idea of the trellises for the peas and cucumbers. They look tidy and easy to get to.

I also like how neat and tidy the ground looks around your vegetables.... do you put mulch down?

All in all, a veg garden to aspire to when we get going again next year! Well done.

Michelle said...

Lovely, lovely, lovely!

Mama Pea said...

Vera - I trellis whatever I can to save space . . . and my back when picking! I mulch the whole garden with grass clippings (from our unsprayed lawn, of course) and it's amazing how quickly it decomposes into the soil. At the end of the season you can hardly tell there was any there. Keeps the weeds down, down, down and enriches the soil a bit more each year.

Looking forward to seeing your productive and lovely gardens next year!

Michelle - Thank you, thank you, thank you, my Bloggy friend!

wisps of words said...

So basically, all you have to purchase, all year long, are meat, milk, flour, butter, sugar? You grow, and can make, everything else. Just about....

That's some savings!

Remember all the blood, sweat and tears which go into the growing, harvesting, and "putting up" of all that food, of course!!!! :-)

Mama Pea said...

wisps of words - Nah, there are lots of other food items we have to buy. We do buy some meat, but also have as much duck, goose and chicken in the freezer as we need. We do save a lot of $$$ on vegetables, for sure. IF you don't count, as you say, the blood, sweat and tears that go into the "making" of those vegetables. It's just a darn good thing I love to garden. (As she sits here dripping sweat, hungry as a bear and wishing someone [ANYONE!] had lunch waiting for us on the table right now!) ;o)

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

Fantastic!! Boy, you plant a lot of peas. They are wonderful, though, aren't they? I would be the only one eating the brussel sprouts around here. To answer your question about tomatoes, I buy plants (small ones, but still already growing) rather than starting my own from seed. I don't usually get fully ripe tomotoes until August and often am still dealing with tomatoes at the beginning of September (that's during productive years - the last two years have been a total wash out). -Jenn

Mama Pea said...

Jenn - I have never done that . . . purchased a large tomato plant with tomatoes already forming. For me to get ripe, regular sized tomatoes that may just be what I have to do. Either that or start mine inside in December (!) which really isn't feasible! Thanks for your note.

Leigh said...

It look so good! Lovely to see everything neatly mulched. That's a feat in itself (if you ask me). It's extremely interesting to me to see you can grow things thing during the summer (like those peas and cabbages) along with things like green beans and sunflowers. My summer gets too dang hot to do that. The peas and brassicas just have to wait until fall or early spring.

Susan said...

Your garden, as usual, is perfect. It is lush and green and everything looks wonderful! It is the stuff of my dream garden.

MrsDuncanMahogany said...

A thing of beauty is this post! Your gardens make me swoon (in a very good way!) :)

My potato plants have nary a flower on them either this year. Strange indeed but I do hope there are some good things in that earth waiting for the harvest.

Goatldi said...

Greeeeeat! So nice to see all the green and growth.

What variety are your sunflowers?

Mama Pea said...

Leigh - It took me many years to realize (yes, I'm slow) that up here near the tundra, all crops, whether they are cool crops or warm ones, mature at about the same time! Good in some ways, totally exhausting in others!!!

Susan - Your dream garden will come when you retire and HAVE TIME to make it so!

MrsDM - I did a "test dig" on a sample of all the different potato varieties and areas of planting a couple of days ago. And did not find a single wee little nub of a potato anywhere. WAAAAAAHHH. I can only hope I didn't dig deep enough (didn't want to disturb anything too much) and come fall there WILL be potatoes to harvest. I hope, hope, hope, hope . . .

Goatldi - The tall ones were seeds given to me in a pretty little box at Christmas time by my daughter who saved them from her last season's plants so I don't know the variety. The shorter, bushier ones are Ring of Fire that I adore since having them recommended to me a few years ago by a fellow blogger.

MaryO said...

Just discovered your blog and I am IN AWE of your beautiful garden! AND the amount of work that goes into it! You're a wonder woman!

Love it!

MaryO1230

Mama Pea said...

MaryO - Welcome and thank you so much for your kind words! I'm no wonder woman but I do love to garden!!