Week 15 Melons and bean splendor

We love our mid-day snacks. Triple Crown blackberries, three grape varieties, a white watermelon, snacks on the run.

These are Angie and my favorite tomato variety, Pineapple.

The firmness of the Brooks prunes makes for a great texture.

These are much smaller than the Brooks prunes and have a different taste than most plums. These are Japanese plums.

Several varieties of eggplant. The large ones take a month or longer than the small ones to reach maturity even though they are planted at exactly the same time.

This is a very common type of honeydew. Some of our peeps don't enjoy the texture of these but love the sweetness.

This is our new honeydew this year. An almost crunchy texture, yellow outside rind, sweet taste. Our taste testers who weren't big on the common honeydew liked this texture much better.

We tried this Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon which looks very different with its pale interior. We weren't impressed with its taste. Probably won't try it again. That's what taste testing is all about. We try new things each year, grow a few of them in the fields and then decide if we'll grown them again.

A table full of honeydew, cantaloupe and watermelon.

Anna and Ethan place grapes in their bags and then the boxes.

These are Janet's Jewels tomatoes. Lovely stripes of gold. These have an earthy taste to them. They make really tasty sauce, too.

We grew a variety of "green beans" this year. We tended to go more toward the more slender "fillet" beans this year and not so many of the regular green beans.

A sneak peak INTO today's bag of grapes. Some with seeds, some without.

We taste the apples and when a melon cracks we usually eat it for lunch!

Purple and green tomatillos.

Green and yellow tomatillos.

Lisa picking the dahlias.

Colorful and different shaped summer squash.

The beans that eventually went into the boxes today. A nice mixture.

Anna made corn ice cream today with a berry sauce for our luncheon dessert. Who would have thought! Delicious and rich.

Today's hot pepper selections. Green and reddish jalapeños along with Hungarian Wax peppers.

These are the sweet peppers for today. Bell peppers, a large, long Sweet Mammoth pepper as well as an Anaheim (mild) and an orange sweet pepper.

Amaranth, Love Lies Bleeding, is also an edible grain. These are so pretty in Lisa's flower arrangements and can be so stunning.

Everything wouldn't fit in the boxes today (again) so the cart is loaded with bags of grapes and boxes of tomatoes.

Buckets of zinnias, cockscomb and eucalyptus waiting to be put into bouquets. There are even a few small sunflowers hiding out.

Gladiolas, zinnias, red cockscomb, green scented geraniums, ornamental grasses and a scarlet perennial lobelia.

Stunning dahlias, slightly droopy Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate, white garlic chives, rosy zinnias, green scented geranium leaves.

Out on a pepper plant in the garden is a splendid HUGE garden spider. 

These are good guys in the garden and are characterized by their white zigzag in their web that hooks two sides of their large webs together. They also wrap up their extra "catch" for a later snack.

Today's list.

Items that wouldn't fit into the 25 x 15 x 9 inch boxes without damaging other things.

Today's harvest box contents.

See you next time on the blog.
Lorrie

Week 14 beautiful flowers and colorful produce

Some of the cherubs are eating their dessert popsicles, some of these peeps are thawing them out under their arms so they release with their handles in tact. All ended up being delicious. Thanks Anna.

Anna made our dessert out of berries from the farm.

The flower house is filling up with Lisa's beauties.

A few dahlias this morning before they are picked and heat treated.

One of our new ones we have fallen in love with. They are huge!

These are all on one plant!

So many colors within this one flower.

Lisa beat me to these. They are picked and immediately put into cool water. Then are dipped into boiling water for a short period of time. They will last longer in Lisa's bouquets after all this special attention.

Beets from the field that hasn't had ANY crops grown in it EVER. A very fertile field. We are happy with the size of these beets.

Bryan sorting beets.

Purple and green onions.

Grams, Bryan, Angie organizing different Asian pears into what will be 20 piles. Rocky walking by with just washed carrots.

Terry with a bouquet of today's carrots.

Terry trimming green onions. Her specialty. Her hands always smell wonderful on Tuesdays after she finishes!

They look all organized now that they are bundled.

I love it when the orchard starts producing these Brooks prunes. Tasty.

Sometimes a beautiful flower has a creepy crawly coming out. Bummer.

Melon infused lemonade is so refreshing.

Can you almost taste it? And it is pretty. We love color.

 There are a few tomatoes today.

Bryan and Grams package the tomatoes.

Today's green grape harvest.

And the purple grape harvest for the day.

The huge beauties have made it to the flower house.

So many pretty colors and textures.

Love these combinations.

Many of the greens and whites are in this section of the flower house today. Sweet smelling scented geraniums, hops, amaranth and ornamental grasses along with pale dahlias.

Some of the new colors Lisa selected to grow this year. Love her choices.

Same bouquet, different view.

Affectionately called "brains".

Eucalyptus we have grown from seed.

I do love pinks and whites.

Grams bundling garlic chives, Terry bundling rosemary.

Garlic chives with their white flowers. All parts are edible.

A bin of broccoli shoots.

Today's harvest box.
(Each box selects one bouquet. Two shown for their beauty.)

Today's list of goodies.

A top view.

A chance to nibble during pick up time. Orange cantaloupe along with yellow and red watermelon are all tasty treats.

One of these ladies is 39 weeks along! She came by to pick up her box and played along with us as we each "hid" a watermelon. What a good sport!

This lovely is called "Kiss me over the garden gate" and reseeded itself a little bit this year. We had started it in the greenhouse from seed for the second year in a row because we liked it. Now we know it will reseed itself. Thank you pretty plant!

And last but not least, a praying mantas climbs up the side of the flower house. This is a good guy for the garden.

See you next time on the blog.
Lorrie