Harvest Monday; June 19, 2017

Happy Harvest Monday to all.

Things are starting to pick up around WOFdog Farms here growth- wise. I did the first picking on the green beans, a few cucumbers, and pulled a couple of the garlic out. Tomatoes and peppers have a long way to go. And I am going to have to do some war on pests.

First lets start with the bad. Those green beans seedlings and sweet potato slips I planted a few weeks ago? Beans were devoured by slugs more than likely and either they or rabbits got to the sweet potatoes.

Thankfully they seem to have re- grown some leaves and may get through this but I'm not happy about the beans. I bought some slug/snail killer but am going to wait a few days since its supposed to rain tomorrow. Not sure if I'm going to replant the beans. Sorry about the weeds but I did clear out a lot Sunday.

The good. Green beans. I grow one type, kentucky bush, mainly for canning for meals the rest of the year. The slugs got up in one of the raised beds and took to some plants but not all. I found their entrance and hopefully cut them off.

The pictures are sideways and I couldn't fix them, sorry. These plants are prolific producers but are hard on the back. Pole beans for next year.

Here's the damage I did on the beans.

Resting on top are 2 elephant garlic that I pulled since the stems were wilted away. We managed to get 10 quarts of canned beans out of them.

I staked up all of the tomato plants and found one hiding. It's a costoluto genovese and they seem to produce well and have a nice look about them.

Cucumbers are finally setting some fruit AND I found out that some sickly squash plants I bought were actually cucumbers too. So now we how 11 plants of cukes. Can you say pickles?

There were a couple more but I didn't get them in the photo.

I've been hardening off my new roma plants and should have them in the ground next weekend.

Sunday I did a lot of picking, weeding, staking, ran the water line for the plants in the field but I don't have enough drip emitters to run to all of the plants yet. 

This young bird wasn't too happy with me being out in the garden. Squawking at me Saturday night and Sunday. Look on the pole.

Here's the updated totals for the year.

Well that's it for me for the week. I'm tired and still have a few things to do. I sometimes wonder how all of you have the energy to write as much as you do :) Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. 

Harvest Monday; June 5, 2017

Happy Harvest Monday to one and all. Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

Harvest picked up a little bit but only by happenstance. I walked by the volunteer onion bed Sunday afternoon and notice a couple of the red onions seemed to be done so I pulled them. 7.5 ounces plus probably the last strawberry picking this year.

Spent Saturday afternoon weeding everything except the volunteer onion bed and another bed were aren't using for anything. Let me tell you that was a fun job! Especially that summer is in the south now. One good surprise is that my belated order of O'Henry sweet potatoes were delivered which meant that I needed to find a place in the garden for them. Onwards to Sunday. Spent the morning shopping and meal prepping and hit the garden again. I staked up some tomato plants and put a row of netting for the cucumbers, hoping that they'll climb their way up. Then I went about tilling up a patch of ground up from my compost pile several times, then planted out about 38 slips. I didn't get the netting up for them as they are climbers because by that point I was spent for the day. But as always happens I remembered that I needed to transplant my late Romas. Got that done too then planted some Alyssum and transplanted some of the rogue marigolds out of the walk paths into another container. Then I was finally done. Anyway I want to show off the weed- free beds as this is probably the last time they'll be like that :)

This is the location I picked for the sweet potatoes. I had already ran the tiller through this once and raked it out. I watered it good, tilled it again, raked it out. Then I ran my small tiller through it to get rid of the remaining wiregrass clumps. Hate the stuff.

Here's the slips. Bought them from Sow True Seed in Asheville. 

And the final product. A lot of work went into this trust me. Get some netting up and call it done. 

Elephant garlic. Should be about another month before they are done. 

Take a guess. 

Green Bean number 1. 

I told you I didn't weed this bed!

Bell peppers. Slow but sure.

Cucumbers. See the half- ass netting I put up? Last year I let them run on the ground so i hope this will be better for them.

Tomatoes. I lost a couple in this bed and honestly forgot what's what. Guess I'll find out when they set. 

Copra onions. Took me probably an hour to weed this bed. Lots of small weeds everywhere. 

Green beans number 2. 

And number 3. 

Strawberry patch. Until next year.

Sad- looking squash plants. I hit them up with some fertilizer Saturday. 

Tomato row. I have those romas that I'll run down the left side. 

Remember those beans I planted last weekend? Surprised even me coming up as fast as they did.

This peach tree is doing great.

This one not so much. It is trying.

Took these marigolds out of the path....

And put them in this bucket. Amy and I were shopping a few years ago inside a grocery store and there was a couple of stacks of these, maybe 12 to a stack, that had a "free" sign on them. Of course we grabbed them. The knee pad with the sprinkler on it is where I planted the alyssum. We had rain coming in Sunday evening and I didn't want the seeds pelted.

Amy's $8.00 tree she got from Lowes last weekend. I had to come down and pick it up. It is a flowering cleveland pear tree. Hope we don't kill it. 

A couple overall shots. I try to do this weekly from the same place to get an idea how things grow. 

Last but not least the harvest for the week, save the strawberries as I ate those. Nothing too big but I didn't plant them either!

No WOF of the Week. Just didn't really see anything that stood out. I write this out Sunday evening as Mondays are work days for me, so I set the schedule for Monday at around 6:00 am. I just have to remind myself to go to Dave's site and link up. Almost forgot to last week. Until next time.

Harvest Monday; May 29, 2017

Memorial Day. A time to reflect on those that have made the sacrifice for our country. I am forever grateful.

Well harvest-wise we got a few more strawberries but they are starting to die down now. We'll cut any remaining flowers off, clean up the bed, and mulch them. I am still considering transplanting them. We'll see.

Amy and I did a lot of work in the garden and her flower beds Saturday. It was a long, hot day to be sure. I got the remaining tomato plants in the ground, weeded the upper field where they went in, threw up some cages that I had, watered everything in real good (still have to run drip line up there), transplanted some marigolds between the plants, planted 3 more rows of green beans, did a little weeding on a few of the beds, finished the mulch around her flower bed, and opened the pool up, which turns out survived winter really well. All it needed was sweeping, a few chemicals added and we were off and running.

Aforementioned pool. It was very clear when we took the cover off.

I put this post in the marigold bed and Amy hung a couple of hummingbird feeders on it.

This was at the end of a long Saturday. Summer is definitely here. 

One of the three green bean beds I started a few weeks ago. Those are Copra onions in the long beds behind them. First time for those. 

Looking north.

And looking south. Still a lot to do. 

WOF Dog Farms at its finest. Looking at this reminds me to get the light post done. Sigh....

My son and I drug out the telescope this past weekend as he hasn't had the chance to view the moon through it yet. These are what we got from our driveway. It wasn't completely dark obviously and I like to view the moon during first or last quarter. Good shots with the phone though. 

I spent Sunday morning helping my oldest son put some new belts on his lawn tractor. Took us a while as we replaced all three and it's not exactly the easiest thing to work on. I come home about 2 in the afternoon to this. Amy floating in her pool. I'll say this, my wife loves her pool. 

"What are you guys doing out there?"

I changed my book on the main page as I finished it and also read another book named Hillbilly Elegy. It wasn't the longest but interesting if you know people from Appalachia. Family on my mother's side are similar to those hillbillies but not quite the same. Still half- crazy though. Worthy read if you have the time. I believe I am now going to read Vikings; Raiders, Traders and Masters of the Sea. I seem to be on a history kick and the Viking Age in particular interests me. I will cruise Barnes and Noble near my office for sale books, and yes, I buy books. I like turning pages instead of looking at a screen. :/ 

That's it for now. Dave of Our Happy Acres is host to all Harvest Mondays.