Funny carrots and precious sawdust

The weird shape of the carrot is no reflection of its taste.  The reason why they have more than one root is because there was too much nitrogen in the soil. Unlike last year, this year's crop of carrots was existent since I double dug the soil.  This tedious procedure allowed the roots to grow freely in every direction. Next year I just have to get the nitrogen right for the carrots.

The squash and pumpkins are so beautiful.  This year's crop was donated by The Mountain School. In the spring, I did not start any of these guys from scratch and I kept forgetting to get them from the farmers market.  Destiny united me and the plant bearers of these in a cow barn among manure.  I was very happy and curious about the type of squash and/or pumpkin that I was getting.  They are all very similar to the pure bred buttercup, acorn and spaghetti squash and pie pumpkins.  I brought these inside this week before a frost.

Definitely a hybrid

Potatoes are now in the root cellar among sawdust. I was keeping them in the basement, but we have started to heat the house with the wood stove. I felt them to make sure they were still hard and smooth.  If they were soft and wrinkled then they were already loosing water. Not good.  I organized them by size in different bags.  I happened to discovered old potatoes in the root cellar.  They were sprouting and some had new potatoes attached to them. I kept those and I baked them with dehydrated herbs from our garden and salt. 

Chioggia beets

We grew a 1 and 3/4 pound beet.  The were other big ones, but this one was the monster beet.  We roasted it with thyme, olive oil and sea salt.

Carrots and beets are now in the root cellar in bags with sawdust as well. It is wise to note that I did not wash any of the root crops before storing them.  If you wash them before you store them, the roots will start loosing water and not keep well.
I also dug up the Dahlia's bulbs.  Hopefully I can plant them next year as soon as the soil can be worked. 

Recap of summer happenings at the garden

Frank the Toad is hanging out the strawberry plants around the stone wall in front of the cabin

Pansies from the garden ready to be placed in ice cubes for the party 

I also used borage flowers, chamomile flowers and mint leaves shaped as hearts 

Asa taking a nap in the middle of the morning 

This week I set out to move their fenced space to enclose a raspberry area near the garden

Asa and Che Che enjoy going on walks with us up the driveway 

and nibble on leaves that they find in their way 

Cauliflower that I forgot to cover up with leaves so that the head would be white 

It still tasted delicious and I blanched and froze two pounds of Broccoli and Cauliflower for the winter

Everything is doing well except for the onions that I tried to start from seed

Onions need a lot of compost, water and sunlight 

I will leave them in the ground in hopes that they will sprout next year 

Cabbage, small but pretty

Broccoli, Kale and Cauliflower do much better in our garden 

One of our lovely chickens cruising thru our garden 

Recently, they have discovered the tomatoes and they like them 

Which means that they are now hanging out with the goats in their pen 

All the them have names 

Blanquita, Negra, Dina and KG 

Our beets are doing great!

I don't think I can wrap one hand around them

I will leave them a little bit longer in the ground in hopes of keeping them in the root cellar 

One apple tree bear fruit this year 

They are getting big and getting some red on them 

I lost the tag of what the trees were, my guess is that they are eating apples 

Red Zebra or Green Zebra tomatoes on the vine 

This morning we had scrambled eggs from our neighbors, tomatoes and eggplant from the garden 

and onions from the farm I work at

Swiss Chard 

My favorite green to grow 

To tell the truth we haven't eaten any yet 

But we will plan to do that soon !

Broccoli, cut and blanched and ready to be bagged!

Time to harvest 

I have been weeding so much that I have forgotten the great feeling of harvesting 

Today I decided to pick, wash and dehydrate herbs from the garden 

Last year was a bad year for herbs, but not this year !!!

I am very excited to dehydrate: 

Rosemary !

Sage 

Thyme and others 

like lemon and Thai basil 

The coolest thing is that last fall I transplanted a thai basil plant to a pot and had it in my classroom

It was the saddest plant you have ever seen

But after being in the garden for a couple of months 

It came back to live

I think I will do that with most of the herbs from this year!

A Bridal Garden Party to remember

Our beautiful garden was complemented by all the beautiful, caring and fun people that joined us this past weekend.  We are very lucky to have found this place. I am very fortunate despite the circumstances of moving to this country when I was 15, and all the hardwork that  Lindo and I had to do to get to where we are now.  And it is all worh it.

                                    

I want to thank everyone that came to the party. I am sorry I missed some of the people that I wanted to be there the most, like my mom and my sister. I guess that is the price you pay when you live away from "family" home. 

                                     

I had so much fun and I just have a big smile every time someone asks me about the party.  It was everything I imagined it to be and more. Thanks to Lindo for putting up with my mysterious planning and setting up the place for the guests.

Since I am teacher, I like to be organized so I set up a map of the garden and a to do list by the temporary tent I borrowed from school. Everyone was helping so cheerfully and I am glad that all my friends got to meet each other and meet my mother in law, Sherrie and father in law Michael. 

Weeding was the first project and the one project everyone was willing to do.  Some of my friends were scared of weeding beds because they didn't want to rip off the veggies, instead they helped me weed the paths and at the same time I showed them what some of the weeds looked like. Also, we planted chard that I had sprouted indoors weeks ago. 

Other projects included planting the veggies and herbs that I got from Jinny Cleland's farm - Four Springs Farm. I worked for her this year for a couple of days and she paid me with plants for the garden. 

I got all kinds of peppers including Hungarian waxpepper, cherrybomb and others. I also got tomatoes for making sauce, for slicing, cherries and novelty ones. Finally, I got eggplants including my favorite Japanese eggplant.

For the first time I got Okra. Also a huge bush cucumber, and herbs like Borage, Thai basil, thyme, water cress and ginger mint. The water cress was planted by a spring near the house and the mint near a bank where it can take over without getting in the way of the garden plants.

The party was also filled with joy and laughter. Our friend Michelle brought her 6 month old baby girl, Brynn to the party.  She was great! I must say she was the number one attraction and who could deny that?

We also planted 3 varieties of potatoes, Red Norland, Russets and Blue potatoes. We turned a bed in the middle of the garden for one variety and for the other two varieties we put them in a new bed that I made of decomposed wood, raspberry canes, mulch, compost and top soil.  We will see how they do. I added phosphate as well before planting the potatoes.

Our friend Jo planting and watering the Forsythia.  These beautiful bushes have the first yellow flowers besides daffodils and dandelions that we can see in New England. Can't wait to see it as a 6 ft + bush

We also worked on planting a new flower garden by the front yard next to where we park the cars. We planted goatsbeard, dahlias among many others.

Jinny Cleland holding the bush cucumber! She knew exactly where to place it in the garden, as well as, where to put the herbs depending on the watering that each herb needs and spacing. I have known Jinny since the fall of 2008 when I met her at the coop and asked her if I could work at her farm.  Since that year, I have helped her either planting pansies and other plants in the greenhouse, spreading compost in the field, wedding carrots and picking up produce for her CSA members. She has been a great source of gardening information and we share a vision for the development of a farm school at her farm.

Mother's day projects and bee hive

 These are the last few days before The Shires Marathon in Bennington, VT.  I feel ready and I am excited that I finally trained for it. I hope to finish it between 4 and 5 hours. In the past weeks, I have seen a bat during one of my runs and a broad-wing hawk carrying some prey (I think it was a frog) in the wetland near the road we live on the other day. 

This past weekend was really exciting, since Saturday was Green Up Day and Sunday was Mother's Day. Also, Saturday was the first outdoor farmers market of the season and we missed it because I decided to volunteer us for Green Up in Springfield. A small student group showed up to clean around the school.  We picked bicycle tires, diapers, bottles, cigarette butts, candy and food wrappers and even shows and clothes.  Later in the morning, we had a picnic.  I brought almond butter and apple cider jelly for sandwiches.  Some kids tried it and liked the combination. A student brought a huge fruit salad! Overall, it was nice to share time with the students outside of the classroom setting.

On Sunday, Lindo's parents came up to visit and help us around our house. The various projects included gardening and woodshed work. The boys took care of the woodshed by cleaning all the old bark and mulch that was and has been at the bottom of the wood pile for years.  They also organized and split more wood for kindling and stacked wood and logs from the yard.  It was a huge project and now the space looks neat and free of wood.

The girls set out to work on transplanting pansies from various locations around the garden to a permanent bed by the front of the house.  They are blooming and some even started out from seed, which is really exciting because I hope to always have pansies in spring.  Also, the strawberry bed by the rock wall got was weeded! The plants are growing very nicely and hope to see flowers on them soon.  The wild strawberry crop promises to be huge this year.  The plants are growing everywhere and when they are done producing I will just tilled them over in the beds and grow other crops there.

While in the yard, I noticed that phoebes are nesting underneath the alcove in our cabin. We hope this time they don't have any trouble raising their young.  Last year they attempted to nest 3 times in different places around our cabin with no luck. 

Lindo has started to build a Top Bar Hive design used in Kenya. The design is simple and the bees do all the work. 

Farewell Vinnie

Vinnie was my beloved Bunny rabbit. He was a rescue from a nature center in VT. He lived with us for three years and now he has gone to pet heaven (I guess). HE had complications with his digestive system and died with me.  I made him a flower garden in the garden and buried him there. That and the fact that I am busy at work have kept me for posting more info about the garden.
Nevertheless the garden is doing well. We just got wood chips to do the paths in the garden and we have been also clearing some of the trash and raspberry canes that lived around the perimeter of the garden. It looks and feels way better !

Drying flowers

Chamomile, Borage and Yarrow flowers!

I am drying them in a cookie rack outside and inside also.

Then, I would use them in teas or poultices or creams !