Week 15

Chemeketa volleyball players helping out their community by helping us pick today. Many of our summer helpers are teachers who have gone back to school/work and aren't available to pick today. These girls (and one guy friend) were a wonderful help.

Here they are just before they left for the day. They picked all the cherry tomatoes, the large tomatoes and the zucchini and yellow crookneck squash. Thank you very much!

Angie snacking on some of the cherry tomatoes the Chemeketa volunteers picked. They picked a LOT of cherry tomatoes.

Today's bucket of tomatillos. Some purple, some green and a few yellow.

Doesn't Anna's lunch today make your mouth water? Homemade pizza. Yum.

Quite a few eggplant are ripe today. They have been loving the hot weather.

Anna brought out a second pizza using a plethora of cherry tomatoes topped off with fresh basil. The smell is wonderful, too.

Angie and Bryan bringing in all the tomatoes the Chemeketa students picked.

Kids, don't do this stunt! Bryan is thinking of building a rack for the cart after this maneuver. Angie thinks he's pretty funny!

Oh my, these are so gooey and delicious.

Pasta salad with fresh veggies. Are we spoiled? YES!

Another view in case there was any doubt.

Levi let me hold him. Sweet boy.

Rocking the Oregon Garden hat. 

Isn't he adorable?

What blue eyes you have my dear. :)

A few yellow beans today.

The tomato sorting begins. Some of each color for every box.

Extra were picked today for the tomato tasting at 4:00. 

Today's cherry tomato blend. So many colors.

The harvesting of the sage is happening here.

Florencio washes off the carrots.

Out in the pepper patch. These are Hungarian Wax hot peppers. 

Jalapeno peppers. They start out green and mature to red. More cracks usually means hotter.

Large red cayenne peppers.

Jalapenos, some plants are taller than others.

Lunch box peppers. That is actually their name. They also start out green and mature to orange.

Anna brought out her beautiful plates for today's tomato taste testing. Each tomato has a name tag.

Tomatoes are labeled, bite sized chunks reside next to the whole tomatoes to show what the complete tomato looks like.  Even salt if someone likes salt.

Alex showing off the bouquet bag Lisa purchased when we went to the Seattle Mariners' game and visited Pike Place. Lisa and I always go check out all the flowers when we go on our annual family Mariners trip.

There were so many flowers today Alex (my daughter) is able to take some with her to her place in Portland and her new school in Gresham. She is a culinary arts teacher.

Cheese under the bug screen for nibbling on between bites of tomatoes. We are ready. Let the tomato tasting begin!

Today's list of goodies.

Cherub bouquets adorn the stroller.

Another one.

One of the large dahlias is rather lonely in the bucket. Sometimes these large ones have short stems that don't work in a bouquet.

Bright colors show off in this bouquet. Lisa diligently working in the background.

See next time on the blog.

Lorrie

Week 14

One of today's carts full of such pretty flowers.

Friend Mary on the left, Mary aka Grams with her hand in the bucket and Florencio organizing, sorting and discussing the day's harvest.

Purple and green tomatillas peaking out of their husks.

This bucket has yellow, purple and green tomatillas.

Lisa tugging her cart with buckets of water to keep the flowers really fresh. Cody her trusty sidekick, ever present.

Eucalyptus keeps company with dark red dahlias in the back of the cart.

This green amaranth was very happy in the garden. It grew so beautifully long and elegant.

Today's aster collection. Such soft, delicate looking and spiky blooms.

Pink zinnias with a few red ones.

Softly pink and cream dahlias.

Erin on the left and Debbie on the right picking the little cherry tomatoes. 

Chris is picking the drying tomatoes. Princip Borghese.

Florencio and his wife Maria picking slicing cucumbers and lemon cucumbers.

My crew that loves to ride in the family golf cart.

A sampling of the tomatoes that were picked today. 

We used to pack full buckets to the ends of the 300 foot long rows. The last couple years we have allotted space for a cart path. So much easier this way :)

Tomatoes ride everywhere. We use the smaller, shallow buckets as tomatoes are heavy enough that when stacked on each other they can squish the ones on the bottom. We try to keep them only 3-4 tomatoes deep. A couple varieties are more firm and are stacked deeper.

Completed the tomato picking just in time for lunch. Nice. 

So many different cherry tomatoes. I love all the different colors, shapes and taste variances.

Once we see how many of each variety are picked we then gently mix them into a picture perfect blend for the day.

Erin and Debbie are gently concocting today's blend.

A touch of red amaranth added to the green amaranth. They are soooo pretty.

Lisa putting together her creations in the flower house.

Flowers to choose from... oh so many choices.

The delicate bright pink is "Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate". It is a perennial that was difficult for us to grow from seed. We will try again for this next year as only one plant survived.

"Fireworks" amaranth is grown for the colorful foliage, not its insignificant flowers. 

These sunflowers fluffy and don't tend to drop pollen on table tops or table cloths. Also good for people with allergies. 

In the firework theme, these are "Firework" asters. 

Other varieties of asters. Some have yellow centers, some don't.

Anna letting Levi experience his first ever corn on the cob.

Apparently he loves it! Those of us out here on the farm tend to try out corn straight off the stalk (raw) to check for sweetness and tenderness. This one passed the test :)

Globe carrots are just bite sized.

Different varieties of watermelon. The ones with yellow dots are called "Moon and Stars". Sometimes they have large splotches of color, that part is the "Moon". The little yellow spots would be the "Stars".

Anna provided us with some of her Cowboy Candy which is candied jalapeno peppers. One of our favorite ways to use this yummy treat is with a Ritz cracker with cream cheese and a slice or two of the Cowboy Candy on top. The recipe is available on Google. Cowboy Candy can also be made with sweet peppers.

One little pear tomato basking in the dappled light. Emma knows I love these so she picked one and brought it to me. Sweet girl.

Extra yellow crookneck squash. Some varieties have bumps, some don't.

Different varieties of eggplant. Light, dark, or striped.

Sweet peppers. The orange ones are one of our favs to snack on out in the field.

Levi sharing his duel stroller. Seems pretty happy about it!

Ethan checking in on Levi and the peppers. A good big brother.

A large tomato. Two hands full!

Today's list of items in the box. Include a bouquet of flowers, too.

Today's box on display. Reality is only one bouquet of flowers, I couldn't decide which one, hence two!

Emma put together her bouquet after all the boxes were picked up. She is sampling a carrot, too. I love her arrangement.

Louise made her bouquet, too.

Ethan showing me his bouquet. He wanted to hide behind his pretty flowers.

Lisa working our pump to move water out of the flower buckets. Up until this year we had to carry all the buckets to the garden area and dump them. The pump is a life saver.

We hook the pump to a long hose and move the water to the flower gardens near by. This is one of the ways we practice sustainability. Re-using water instead of needing to use a sprinkler to water these beds is a way to conserve water.

Black eyed Susan's or Rudbeckia.

Morning glories are closing up for the day. 

The light in the flower house is on. Morning glories up in the morning, then close before dark. Kinda cool.

After purple coneflowers' petals fall off, birds start feeding on the dark seeds. We leave them for a long time, hopefully until they have all been snacked on.

The old chicken house at dusk.

These morning glory climb the green pallet trellis and share the rose bush trellis, too.

The morning glory even climbed around the corner of the chicken house and moved horizontally along the sweet pea trellis.

The flowers outside the potting shed. The light pink impatiens show up near dark. Light colored plants can "light up" paths in the garden, too.

Morning glory twining themselves up the trellis after dark. The nearby light casts a shadow on the chicken house wall.