Knowing more precipitation is on the way, I pushed to get as much done in the garden as I could. And, boy howdy, do I feel it tonight. I made a simple dinner of hamburgers, 'cause that's about all I could handle. Now I've had my shower and am in my jammies already at a smidge after 7 p.m.
First on my list of garden tasks today was to get the three potato rows hilled up. The row on the right are Burbank Russets. They were the tallest and I had trouble pulling the dirt up around them as much as I wanted. In the middle are Red Chieftans. They poked through the soil at the same time as the Russets but haven't gotten quite as tall.
The third row over on the left was planted with potatoes I had left from our crop last year. I don't even know what variety they are, other than a nice red potato, as they were originally given to us many years ago by a farmer friend about 100 miles south of us. The harvest they gave us last year wasn't up to expectations so I purchased the two new kinds to try this year besides the old regulars. I didn't think my old seed potatoes were ever going to come up but, of course, they finally did. I plan to keep track of the harvest we get from each variety this fall.
These are our June bearing strawberries. (Which don't bear up here until July!) They're looking very healthy and have been covered with blossoms, some of which are nickel sized green berries now.
I plant my shell peas on either side of the cattle panels I use for trellises and their tendrils are just now starting to reach up and grab onto the trellises. It seems they've been slow growing this year. Or maybe I'm just too eager. As usual.
Those three bushes in the foreground are the haskap berry bushes. They're four years old this spring and certainly do grow faster than blueberry bushes. (Blueberry bushes are behind and then our raspberry patch at the far end of the picture.) Last year was the first year the haskap bushes produced any amount of berries . . . which the robins enjoyed before we realized what was happening. (Grrrr!)
This is what the very unripe berries look like right now. They're about 1/2"-3/4" long and won't get too much bigger but will turn a dark blue like blueberries.
The blueberry bushes have more blossoms on them than we've ever seen. I can hardly wait for breakfasts of fresh blueberries and cream. Or fresh strawberries (or raspberries!) and cream. To my mind, that's the real breakfast of champions!
20 comments:
Your garden is beautiful! I love how nice and neat it is with the hay around the plants.
Its all looking wonderful, very tidy and organised I do like an organised tidy garden :-)
My goodness, your professional-looking garden makes ours look like child's play! Ah well, as long as ours grows us some food, right? ;-)
I sure do love seeing that tidy garden of yours.
Your peas are a lot smarter than mine. They're right next to the panels but don't seem to "grasp" the idea to hang on. Stupid peas!! Stupid TASTY peas. I forgive them their stupidity at harvest time!
Your garden is incredible! So neat and tidy and wonderful fencing for vegetables to grow up. Strawberries mulched and potatoes hilled. You put a lot of work into it, but I know you will end up with a full freezer and canning jars! -Jenn
That is a beautiful garden.....Wow!
Laurie - Believe me, once the plants get up and growing and bushier, it won't look so neat!
Dawn - I do, too! I find if I don't get it this way at the start, it gets away from me quickly!
Michelle - 'Tis not professional-looking just big. And that's so it can provide us with nearly year 'round food. And as you say, any garden that grows us some fresh, nutritious, good food is what it's all about!
Sue - There are many years I plant the "stupid" peas, too. I have to actually TIE them to the trellis to get them to climb. Often the same variety that climbs on their own. What's with that?
Jenn - Yep, that full freezer and canning jars are what it's all about for us! Besides that, I get great exercise from gardening and truly enjoy it. :o)
Fiona - Thanks! But wait until you see the pictures mid-August . . . I guarantee it won't look as tidy!!
Rebel peas?
LOL!
Obviously!
You have such a lovely garden Mama Pea! Everything looks so neat and clean I have to say I'm jealous :) I know that most gardens are a work in progress, do you know how long it took you to get where you are? Those potato hills look wonderful, I hope you're successful with them, I hear they are difficult to grow?
Rain - How long to get the garden where it is right now? Well, that's really hard to compute. I planted the first raised bed of onions on May 6 and that a smidge earlier than I usually start. I did things like thin the raspberry patch, take the winter mulch off the strawberries, clean the asparagus patch, weed the blueberries around that time, too. Then we had weeks of cold, rainy weather when I wasn't even able to hardly plant anything. I work in the garden every day the weather allows me to (usually starting around mid-May) . . . and I love every hour of it. Even when I'm bone tired. Right now, everything is planted except the broccoli and cabbages I'm starting inside.
We can normally grow any root crop, potatoes included, easily up here. Beets, carrots, turnips, rutabagas, etc. Our potato harvest from our planted 60' is over 200 lbs.
Someday, I'd love to have a hoop house so I could easily grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, all warm weather veggies like that. Without some protection they don't do well up here because of our lack of sustained heat.
I hope I never have to stop gardening. Not only does it give me wonderful exercise out in the fresh air, but provides us with SO MUCH nutritious, organic food that keeps us healthy and strong!
I get intimidated when I see other people's gardens, I don't know why. One of my friend's told me (she's near Thunder Bay, Ontario) that none of her potatoes grew last year, but that it's "very hard to grow potatoes"...so in my head I'm like "I can't grow potatoes"....it's lack of confidence I think! I love your layout too. A hoop house sounds awesome, and one day I want to have a winter greenhouse too. We're in Quebec, but in the next 3 years we're relocating to the Maritimes, and the growing season is longer where we plan to buy a property, but the winters are just as harsh.
I can say though, I harvested a lot of cilantro this morning and it's now in the dehydrator. Even that small little thing makes me feel good. We wont' have to buy any cilantro all winter with the "crop" I harvested and the rest that I have we'll use fresh for the rest of the season, so I know how you feel, how wonderful it is to provide yourselves with fresh and nutritious food! Congrats and thanks for the response! :)
Rain - Yay for your cilantro harvest! It should make you feel very good. I've been looking at my mint wondering if I can harvest and dry some of it already. Other than the chives in the freezer, it would be my first real harvest of the season. Oh, I forgot about the 8 bags of pre-made rhubarb pie filling I have in the freezer. All the same, doesn't it feel wonderful to put anything away for the year to come?
You're very welcome for the post (which turned out to be longer than I had intended) on hilling taters.
Love to see the rows...
Thanks, Endah!
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