Affectionate carrots

production is happening

We will have tomatoes if we have nothing else. The plant to the left, and yes it is a single plant, is the volunteer sweet 100 from last summer. It is one of our favorites. It has needed a cage and two stakes to hold it up. We have more of that variety in the bed below along with romas, which have been abundant, and some slicers that have been slow to mature, but are starting to produce in decent numbers now.

Thinking about starting a second crop. I have two different varieties of seeds that came in form the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange , along with some fall seeds for other crops. We discovered this seed source last summer at a festival in Charlottesville, Va.

We also have cantaloupe maturing, three melons so far.

Of all the lettuce and greens we planted, the red russian kale has been the best producer. It took it some time, but it is thriving even in this heat.

The purple okra has been spotty. This one has produced it's first pod which we picked last evening.

This is the bed where I planted cabbage, broccoli and brussel sprouts. They did nothing all spring so about three weeks ago I cut them all off. Some of them are coming back. Perhaps a late crop for early fall?

And finally some basil. The plants we put out in spring got caught in a late freeze and didn't make it. We planted seeds and now it is in it's full glory.

Strawberries

It's curious to me that strawberries are no longer "in season" in NC, but they are still going gangbusters in our beds.  There are buds, blossoms and ripening fruits all over the place.

rare sighting

I can't remember the last time I saw a praying mantis. This dude just showed up on my office window screen the other morning. Great natural pest control. Go forth and multiply!

Beeeeeeeeeeees!

We are planning to start a bee hive next year.

Tonight, we go to our first meeting of the Orange County Beekeepers at 306 Revere Road in Hillsborough.

They meet the second Thursday of each month.  Except next month. They are skipping July because they/we will all be at the state beekeepers meeting which, very conveniently, will be in Elon this year.

I'm pretty stoked.

When I was a kid, my grandmother had bees.  She just took the comb out of the hive and stuck it in jars, no centrifuge or other processing.  So, we always had honey.  I was shocked when I went to the store for the first time as an adult and found out how expensive it is to buy.

I'm really looking forward to having honey.  I'm also looking forward to helping the little pollinators into my garden.

June 1st status

I said this was going to be a learning season, but there is still a slight twinge of disappointment with some of the plants so far. The lettuce & greens never did much and the Spring veggies, broc, cabbage & brussel sprouts, the same. I think a couple of things were involved with that. Don't think we got the early stuff in the ground as soon as we should have and I think that more watering was needed than I anticipated with the raised beds. We got a 3-4 day stretch of rain a couple of weeks ago and the plants started making more progress.

Now I am watering every other evening unless we get rain.


The good news is the tomato bed is doing quite well, as there is fruit on almost all the plants so far.


Peas and okra are coming up nicely as well.


This little guy was helping me water last evening.


Kitty nursed a curry plant inside through the winter that she found at the Indian market in Cary. She finally moved it's pot outside when it was looking sort of yellow, but it didn't make it. Fortunately it came back as volunteer purslane.

More fruit!

Thursday night, we went out to admire the beds and move the sprinkler and realized that the cherries were ripe enough to pick and that the net bag had kept the birds off the fruit so there were actually fruit available to pick.

I got the tree two years ago in my fruit tree planting frenzy and this is the first time we've really gotten to taste the produce.  They are sour cherries, which means better (in my opinion) in something rather than just good to snack on.

So, will it be cobbler or a very small batch of jam?  Decisions; decisions.

Thy-y-y-yme is on your side. Yes, it is!

 The Women's Resource Center in Burlington, NC has a fundraising Herb Festival every Spring.

I've been looking forward to the absurd abundance they provide to put a variety of thyme in the front of one of the vegetable beds.  I passed up 3 that didn't have enough scent to convince me they'd be any good for cooking.

Left to right, they are Creeping Lemon, English, Foxley (which I"d gotten at the Carrboro Farmers' Market a month ago.), Red Mother of and Transparent Yellow.

It cracks me up that the tall one is Creeping Thyme and that one is really, truly named Red Mother of (thyme).  It doesn't look particularly red right now.  I'm hoping the sun will inspire it.  I had English thyme in the kitchen garden by the house until the lavender overwhelmed it, so it it the one I'm most familiar with.  I'm looking forward to using these because I really do love the flavor.

Critter Netting

Installed critter netting today using standard 1" PVC pipe and netting found online specifically designed for farming purposes. The pipe will allow us to use clear plastic in the winter for greenhouse/cold frame growing. I need to get some tent stakes to help anchor it. The wind today is blowing it around a bit.

Beds are full

From the house this is the back left bed.  Full of tomatoes.  Romas, Sweet 100s and some "heirloom slicing tomatoes" that Liane gave us when they had as many as they could use for Vimala's Curryblossom Café.  I planted "French Double Dwarf Mixed Colors" marigold seeds in the holes on the outside edge.

This is the back right bed.  Chuck started "Little Marvel" peas, "Red Burgundy" okra and eggplants in the bed from seeds.  He also started "Ruby Red" Swiss chard and (mixed, orange yellow and white) carrots in pots and they have been transplanted, today.   Carrots in the left side holes (from this angle) and chard in the bed and in most of the other holes.

I, also, put marigold seeds in between the strawberries in the bed in front of this one.

Also, please note the outside of the blocks have been stained "Tuscan Sunset."