Week 17

Curly willow harvested last winter awaits bundling for this weeks harvest boxes. After the leaves fell last year, Lisa and Anna trimmed the tree by the orchard with bundles in mind.

Samples of the possibilities with gourds and curly willow.

Bundles are separate and tied to aid in ease of selection for our box holders.

A wide variety of little pumpkins and gourds.

Another view which includes the gazebo.

Box holders will be selecting their collection of goodies and placing them in the bag underneath. Then selecting their bundle of curly willow from the holding buckets to the right just out of the photo. Samples in the middle are for ideas.

Mini bell peppers are changing color. Most peppers start out green and then change color. These end up a deep orange when at their sweetest.

Lunch today, chicken fajitas with onions and peppers. Yum!

Refried beans Anna made from our dry black beans at The Farm. Rich flavor.

Florencio digging carrots. He will then take them in and wash the mud off. This part of the row contains the orange carrots.

Yellow crookneck squash is producing out toward the ends of the bushes. The first part of the stems that have grown are no longer productive, leaves have dried up near the base of the plant. It almost looks like a new plant is growing about 3 feet from the original plant.

Zucchini started producing to the right of this photo along the stem. Now they are producing out toward the newer growth at the left side of the photo.

Tomato choices for today. Bags have been filled with many varieties today. Large orange ones to the left are Kellogg Breakfast tomatoes. The bottom box contains Pear Goliath and Red Brandywine varieties.

Tomato picking hand with the pepper patch in the background. We do love planting flowers IN the vegetable garden.

The day's cherry tomatoes are bagged. We try to fill them as full as possible without squishing the ones on the bottom of each bag.

A cart full of squash with one bottle gourd. Front to back: two varieties of yellow crookneck, tan butternut, "Carnival" acorn squash, white patty pan, green speckled bottle gourd, dark green acorn and finally zucchini.

Asian pears. Our neighboring farmer has worked his fields recently covering our produce with a fine dust. A good rain will wash it away.

We have enjoyed all the colors of mini bell peppers this year. 

Red noodle beans were a pleasant addition this year. We love fun vegetables.

Colorful vegetables are pretty AND good for us.

Sweet corn usually has two ears per stalk.

The "silk" of this variety is dried up and brown. An indicator of how ripe the corn is. Dried out and brown usually means it is ripe. The top most ear is the first to ripen.

This variety is less mature, notice the color of the silk. Also the ear is still skinny looking and narrow at the top. An experienced corn picker can pick in the dark by feel. Lisa and my Dad used to pick up to 100 dozen ears of corn before work in "the old days" when we operated our roadside stand. He picked into a wheel barrow with wooden boxes that held 5 dozen ears. He was a corn picking machine!

The side view of the corn patch. Florencio planted three varieties of corn for this patch. The "days to harvest" for each variety is different. "dth" indicates how many days after you plant your crop until you should be able to harvest it. The earliest variety is a "58 dth" variety and is planted closest to the house and the latest, "105 dth" furthest away. This allows for a longer harvest time instead of this entire patch being ready all at once.

Raspberries are a biennial plant. The first year the canes grow and may produce fruit in the fall on the tips of the canes, like these green canes here. Next summer these same green canes will produce their biggest crop off their two year life on their lateral shoots (side shoots) and then will die off. Hence the brown canes in the middle of the row. 

The brown canes on the inside of these raspberry rows will be cut down to the ground and hauled away. The green first year canes will be tied up and ready for lateral shoots to grow and produce next summer. And the process will repeat.

Blackberries are also biennials. The brown canes that are up on the wires produced this year and have now completed their life cycle and will be cut down and hauled away. The green canes that Florencio has trained to grown under the row and not in the paths, will be trained up on the wires a bit later this fall or winter. And the cycle will repeat.

A late planting of broccoli grows in between the newest sunflower crop and the corn. Broccoli isn't a fan of hot weather so these tall plants provide some shade to help cool them.

Blackberries on the left are all up on their wires for next year. The ones on the right have had their old canes trimmed and hauled away. Florencio has been busy!

This row of blackberries on the right has been trimmed, the new canes are up. The old brown canes lying in the wide path will be hauled away to the burn pile. 

These pole beans are the red noodle beans. Their leaves are starting to wane indicated by the yellow coloring. Our new crop of lettuce in the foreground.

A bouquet of pink asters and zinnias along with white and purple dahlias. A box of gourds in a variety of colors, shapes, sizes and "wartiness".

The last crop of sunflowers are beautiful.

Chris, in the background, missed her summer farm day "fix" so came out after her school day to help out in the flower shed. Today is the gourd, curly willow and sunflower day
we have been planning for.
Chris is prepping newspaper for soaking in water and wrapping the sunflower bouquets and Lisa on the right is bagging gourds for someone while they get their box of produce.

Today's boxes are very full. Not everything fits in. A sugar pumpkin for cooking or carving is included.

The Black eyed Susans are beautiful. After the yellow ray flowers have dried up, the brown seed head matured in the center is a nice snack for the little birds, like this one balancing in the middle.

Week 16

Brooks prunes. These are such a delight. The trees are loaded this year, not so every year. We are feeling lucky!

Our earliest Asian pears.

A slightly tougher skinned Asian pear. Ripens a little later. So very crunchy.

Slicing cucumbers from the field.

Two varieties of yellow crookneck squash. One is bumpy, one is smooth. These are from our second planting of summer squash.

Very young and tender skinned summer squash. The zucchini are showing dust from our neighbor's field work.

Grams and Other Mary have a little helper this morning.

Anna and Scott "clean" the kohlrabi. They are taking off the extra leaves while their pup looks on.

My great niece who lives at the farm just returned from her first day of kindergarten. Looking pretty spiffy!

Loving her new backpack. Sweet girl :)

A large collection of grapes.

Bagged grapes. We try to package them so they don't squish each other in their sacks in the harvest boxes.

Red noodle beans. These are pretty strange looking. They do hold their color when cooked.

Green beans waiting to be bagged.

Red jalapenos. 

Hungarian wax peppers. These are hot to me.

A smaller slicing cucumber with a few lemon cucumbers.

Tasty yellow and red mini bells along side green bells.

One of our favorites here at the farm. Fried yellow crookneck squash. Slice, toss in flour and garlic salt and fry in olive oil or butter. The best.

Zucchini "noodles" are tossed in olive oil and lightly sauteed. 

Today's vegetable salad. So tasty. 

Pickled red onions in vinegar and oil. Crunchy and tasty.

Pumpkin cookies with wonderful pumpkin frosting. 

What a treat. Lunch is always a variety of fresh vegetables in new and delicious ways. 

Lisa on the left, Anna on the right. Eating  lunch with the cherry tomatoes.

Bill, Faith and Mary (just joining us at the farm after her back surgery a few weeks ago, notice her brace) enjoying their lunches.

Anna made just a few cookies for us. Mmmm.

Orange and yellow carrots. They are very crisp. I particularly think the yellow ones are sweet.

Today's tomato collection awaits bagging.

Parsley is bright green and vibrant today.
It smells really good, too.

Blue salvia in the front, blue and white spires of veronica toward the back. A few light blue and white pincushion flowers, too.

Another view, Lisa and I love blue flowers. There aren't as many choices when trying to grow blue flowers. The only flower color harder to find is black. A black flower? Hmm.

A wide variety of carnations we grew from seed this past winter are starting to bloom. Usually perennials don't bloom until their second year. We are getting a fragrant bonus.

Purple dahlias and snapdragons with fountain grass.

Teddy Bear sunflowers with heavenly blue statice.

Different colored zinnias, pink asters and the very first Sweet William. We grew them from seed this past winter and they, too, are blooming early.

The last few blue delphinium with the different types of orange zinnias.

Blue statice with light yellow sunflowers.

Snapdragons give these orange zinnias a different look.

The table where Lisa is working. Many works in progress. 

Arching blue veronica with light colored zinnias and heavenly blue statice.

If you could only smell this cart full of flowers. Clove scented carnations are so sweet.

A few King apples off the big tree near the greenhouses.

Mary in the background and Faith nearby marvel at the size of these apples.

This is all for Week 16.
See you next week, Lorrie