28 May 2008

Garden Walk - May 27th

I was blog-visitng over at My Wildlife Sanctuary and enjoyed how the writer described her daily photo walk in her garden. Thus inspired, I waited for a break in the rain (I think we're about 16 or so inches ahead of normal so far this year with total rainfall usually averaging only 46 inches!) to go out for a photo stroll in the yarden. These are some veggie garden snapshots:

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

Above, the Blue Lake bush beans are just at the stage the rabbits like them. (Got to get that little rabbit fencing up for them...)

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

This is the Kale & Snow Peas bed. The kales are Blue Curled Scottish and Ragged Jack (Red Russian - in top right of pic). Ragged Jack is a lot sweeter and next year it's my choice. We stir fry/saute our kale with just a bit of olive oil and garlic and it is so very delicious that way - and so wonderfully green. We've eaten bundles and bundles out of this bed already and it's still full.

The peas are Oregon Sugar Pods. Very productive! Not as sweet, nor as finicky as our favorites, Sugar Snaps.

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

Here's the former Pea & Spinach bed, cleared yesterday of the bolting spinach. The peas are still going strong. I'll put bush beans in now, since I have the handy leftover stick fence for rabbits...

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

I love beets! I never plant enough. These are in bad need of thinning & eating the thinnings!

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

This bed of broccoli (underplanted with a small romaine lettuce) is nearly done. It was so lovely. There are a few red cabbages in there, but they are looking a little puny. I need to whip up a tonic for them...

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

And in the midst of our bounty, here's a future bounty for butterflies, more of the Tropical Milkweed I so adored last year and wrote several posts about under the Butterfly label.


May 27th in the Garden (2008)

This bed has Swiss Chard (also in need of thinning -- Hello, my name is Leigh and I'm an over-planter....but wait, we almost always get to eat the thinnings too...or if we don't the chickens get to...) on the end, Chinese cabbage (Joy Choi) in the middle and some more broccoli toward the right. The Joy Choi is amazingly productive and quick to reach eating size. We had a big one last night stir fried with mushrooms and it was YUMMY. I may go chinese on my cabbage choices from now on...

May 27th in the Garden (2008)

My tater row. Or one of them. This one was planted late b/c the other row got hit hard by a late frost. But then the frost-hit row regrew -- or about every other one anyway, so the row has big empty places. Hmm, what could I plant there?

Thanks for joining me in the garden walkabout in late May. My garden is a bit behind a lot of my neighbors b/c I'm always slow to figure out when and where I want to plant things. But wow, we are doing some good eating out of this garden. More about that next post!

27 May 2008

How many wheelbarrows to plant a tree at Larrapin?

How many wheelbarrows to plant a tree at Larrapin?

Just how many wheelbarrows do I need around here? All three! One to hold the digging tools (which usually includes my first authentic Ozark gardening tool: a prison road crew worthy digging pick and eye protection for flying rock...), one to haul the topsoil to the site from the topsoil pile, and on to hold the enormous amount of leaf mulch!

This is a little pear tree planted about a month ago. If the rain will pass today and I can get out with my camera, I'll do a baby tree progress picture later this afternoon. (That is Glimmer the Golden Locust behind it, confusing the picture.)

My next post will be on the new tree planting technique I learned from my new favorite book on rainwater harvesting. Just my luck, to discover the best drylands water management book ever, during the rainiest year ever in Northwest Arkansas! (OK maybe not the rainiest ever, but sure to be in the rain hall of fame...) More later!