Week 13 So much to pick!

Crisp yellow watermelon, cantaloupe, and a small piece of red watermelon. All of this on Anna's lovely platter. A wonderful addition to our lunch.

Some of the first corn. Corn's sugars start turning to starch right after they are picked. The sooner corn is eaten the sweeter it will be. If you wait, corn on the cob tends to get chewy and lacks flavor.

Terry juggling today's colorful carrots.

Asian pears. We think these are the variety "20th Century". Dad had not labeled his orchard so we aren't sure.

Many shapes and colors of squash.

The small Japanese plums. A friend of Dad's asked him to see if these would grow here in Salem. I'd say the answer to that is Yes!

Yukon Golds Rocky dug today.

Brooks prunes for today.

A real treat, Triple Crown Blackberries.

As with the orchard, we do not have names for our many varieties of grapes. Dad did plant table grapes and grapes for raisins or juicing. He never intended to make wine, so he didn't grow grapes specifically for wine.

A wide variety of cucumbers. You might notice the "scarring" on some of the green cucumbers. That is caused by pest damage, cucumber beetles chew on cucumber flowers (the flowers then don't turn into a cucumber lessening the harvest) and also on the fruit that does grow. We fight cucumber beetles all summer.

Some of our full size cantaloupe. 

A few tomatillos. 

The melon table. These are possibly red, yellow, orange or white/cream colored watermelon. 

Today's cleaned up squash selections being sorted.

Erin and Lisa in the background scurrying around making bouquets. Lisa knows I am partial to pink flowers. Love this one!

One of our big, fluffy dahlias.

Here it is in with pink asters, greenery from a scented geranium called Mable Gray and a pale pink/creamy Cafe Au Lait dahlia.

A plethora of zinnias are ready to be chosen for bouquets.

A beautiful red Cornel dahlia from Swan Island Dahlias. If you have room in your garden, they are a wonderful place to purchase your dahlia tubers. We try NOT to look at their website... haha.

Sunflowers, red dahlias, white button-like feverfew. 

Purple asters, white dahlias, purple gladiolas and purple and white statice.

A wide variety of zinnias. From cactus types to peppermint types.

Orange gladiolas, orange zinnias, purple asters, small feverfew along with orange, arching crocosmia.

One of the adorable critters today. Erin found this little guy catching a ride on this zinnia.

Swiss Chard on the left, celery on the right.

Dark brown centers on these sunflowers are very showy. Sometimes the longer petals don't hold up well in a bouquet. They sure are cute. 

Week 13 list of goodies.

Today's week 13 harvest box.

Out in the brassicas field. We plant flowers out among the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage as well as in the pepper and tomato patches.

Another critter that was spotted today.

Lisa spends so much time picking and cleaning flowers. She is always on the run...

Critter damage on a cabbage leaf.

The zinnia field.

A hidden eggplant or two. Some are small and therefore mature sooner than the large, dark purple ones. We planted 8 varieties this year.

A cart full of dahlias that will have their stems "heat treated" so their blooms will last longer.

Another view as Lisa zooms past.

Hungarian Wax peppers. A tad too warm for me to eat all by themselves.

Rocky pulling fennel closest to the camera, Alex and Angie cutting kale. Busy girls.

Bryan (my husband), Mary aka Grams (my mother in law) and Alex (our daughter) sorting and bagging Yukon Gold potatoes. Bryan and Grams have on our Shady Maple Farm t-shirts. If you are interested we have them for sale.

Lisa in the flower house working her magic.

Bouquets in various stages of completion. Drying flowers above and below. Seed packets drape the lattice wall in their own garland. They are packets we have planted here on the farm.

The zinnia short tables are loaded. Lisa and I built the rolling short tables a few winters ago so everything would be at the correct height. Another seed packet garland dresses up the background.

Additional zinnias, a few sunflowers and some purple Russian Sage in the corner of the flower house.

Another peek at the cute little frog.  Thanks Erin for taking this photo.

During pick up times Cody (Lisa's side kick) makes sure he is petted by all the kiddos and many of the adults that stop by. He is a friendly mascot!

See you next time on the blog.
Lorrie