Plumcots ripe this week. Aren't they beautiful. This is their first year to bear fruit. They are really good, though as with plums, the flesh is sweet and the peeling tart. I hope to sell most of them and make jam with the rest. The "Methley" plum tree is in the background and "Rubrum" is past that. This is my classic bed that works so well for me: pole beans intermixed with cucumbers and marigolds. Everything is just starting to climb and it will be a few more weeks before cucumbers are on the vines and July before the "Rattlesnake" pole beans begin to bear. The marigolds just take up space where the emitters lie on the irrigation line and keep things pretty. Beans are on the big pole teepees and cucumbers on the smaller structures. See beehives in the background.

This is the tomato bed. Tommy put up the cages and poles. I planted and keep them trimmed and tied up. I have 48 plants in this bed with a deep straw mulch. Most of them are heirlooms, but I always have a few "Big Beefs" and "Better Boys" in there for backup in case of blight. The"Roma" tomatoes are in another bed with more "Sungold" cherry tomatoes.

Here is succession one and two of sweet corn. To the right is the potato row which is now in the process of being dug up as needed. I just got done applying fish meal to the second planting and hilling up the rows to avoid lodging. It all comes and goes so quickly.

These are still photos of the lavender in the video below. I accidently posted the photo twice and can't figure out how to get one of them off. duh....

Early summer...beautiful!

The "Grosso" lavender is at its best right now and the big bees are in it all day long. They make the plants seem to dance with their weight as they go from stem to stem. The scent is wonderful as you walk by and sometimes it drifts to other areas of the yard. I had to go to some lengths to get lavender to grow in our soil and climate, but it seems to be working well. I propogated all these plants from one large one just across that area of the yard from these. The chicken coop is just across the driveway as you can hear.

Kevin Parris identified this stump cluster of American chestnut saplings four years ago when he came to look at Windmill Hill. We cut all but two back to the ground to allow one of them to take the lead. This spring I noticed that it has some catkins/blooms on it for the first time. I SO hope it will not die of the blight as almost all of the American chestnuts in this country have. The tree is in the "little woods" between Amelia's house and ours. I tried to get a good shot of the catkins in my photograph, but they aren't very prominent.

I will send the leaves to the American Chestnut Foundation this week to confirm the identification. Now that it is old enough to produce nuts, we may be able to help out in the research and development of a resistent American chestnut without any input from Chinese or other chestnut strains.

Shifting gears

Three days of sulky, rainy weather including a big hail storm has finished off the strawberries. I sold the last two pounds yesterday. Now we shift gears to cherries before blueberries and blackberries follow in a few weeks.

10 pounds of Nanking cherries Amelia picked this morning. Each one has a seed that we feel we must spit out. For lunch, we ate a "boil" of new potatoes, sugar snap peas and broccoli with no butter. On the side we had garlic and Hakurei turnips pan fried. For dessert we ate these cherries with sweetened cottage cheese. Dessert was very labor intensive and took us a long time to eat because we had to count the cherries in each bite and take that same number of seeds out of our mouths before we took a new bite. It was just funny!

Yesterday I planted okra and crowder peas under black mesh. Today I planted watermelon, Seminole pumpkins and six kinds of melons and cantaloupe under black mesh....all to keep from having to weed. Last year, the weeds got ahead of me and were out of control. Not again! I also planted edamame and zinnias yesterday. Next will be second corn and 2nd green beans. After that will be fall seedlings in the greenhouse in late July. Hold on to your hat for summer harvesting and weeding.

Yesterday, we had almost 20 minutes of hail and 2.5 inches of rain. It was a whale of a thunderstorm. The hail tore up many of the leaves and stems of the young vegetable plants. I hope they recover well.

After the storm passed, I went out to assess the damage and cut some flowers to put in a vase, as pictured...larkspurs, cilantro and Gloria's roses.

Also, the lemon thyme is in full bloom. I will mow it down when it is done so we can use the walk again. The bees love it.

Dan brings us this wonderful dirt from Asheville and the garden has benefitted so much.

We have a slow, steady rain this morning....much needed in more ways than one. The garden is dry and I am way behind in my indoor duties.

Yesterday we picked a 1/2 bushel of beautiful strawberries. The weather has been dry, but now that the rain and humid air have descended, I know the strawberries will start to mold inside the rows if they don't have air circulation and sunshine. So I went through the bed on my hands and knees picking berries and pulling out plants to accomplish that purpose. I found lots of hidden berries that way too. The freezer is full and I have customers coming to buy the rest. Gave some to Rachel yesterday. Good crop this year, but I need to find a later variety for half the crop and enforce my picking space between the rows.

These are the Sugar Snap peas on the fence. Also on this fence is shelling peas. Planted under the soaker hose is the pole beans "Violet's Multicolored Butterbeans" that I grow and sell seed to the Seed Savers in VA. They will take over when the Sugar Snaps die in late May.

See the bumper crop of spinach that I planted last fall. Yum! Past the spinach is the kale that has bolted. I leave it for the bees to gather from.

Here is bed #10 full of garlic from my crop last year and a few in the front right that I ordered from Johnny's. The bed on the left will be planted in pole beans on teepee poles with cucumbers between and marigolds all around. Nanking cherry bushes are in the bed on the left.

The strawberries have lots of blooms and green berries. We will have a good crop in about two weeks.

This is our new pool at Windmill Hill. It isn't very deep, nor is it clean, but it will not drain out for hours!

I needed to extend my short bed, and I knew the shovel wouldn't go into the dirt here as it existed since time immemorial. So, with great effort and horsepower, the tractor was able to scoop about three inches out. I put the hose in and filled up the trench. In about two hours, it had soaked into the hardpan. Then, the tractor scooped out another three inches or so. This picture was taken after I filled it up again. This was an hour later! Tomorrow we will take the pickax after it to loosen the bottom. Ugh!

The other picture is the sprinklers trying to coax the carrots seeds into germinating. Isn't it pretty in the late afternoon light. In the foreground, buckwheat has come up all in the broccoli bed. No problem.

Tommy plowing the cover crop yesterday.....

This morning, Tommy repaired the nesting boxes in the chicken tractor because so many hens are laying eggs that we were running short of setting spaces. We are getting about 20 eggs per day and we sure can't eat all of that, so I sell them. I cleaned up the bee equipment while Tommy moved firewood into the shed for the summer. I spent the last half of the morning roughing up the dirt in the herb bed and the potato bed so the tiny weeds wouldn't take hold.

This afternoon, I finished transplanting the broccoli, mulched them all with compost and ran the irrigation. Next, I started excavating #12 bed for the carrot planting. In the middle of that, Daingerfield came over to borrow the turn plow. We had to strap it onto the tractor scoop and lift it into bed of his pick-up truck....whew, dodgey! I took him over to Pat Cart's property (which we almost own now) for a tour. After he left I sat down in the strawberry bed and weeded until 5:30 when my stomach started growling. Productive day!

I got all the pepper plants in their individual cells much earlier in their progress because I started them with Johnny's tiny soil blocks (see the farthest flat). I hope they do OK with only the dicot leaves. They are going into the greenhouse on sunny days and back in the house at night.

Today was tomato seed planting day....in one flat about 240 tomato seeds....13 different kinds. Spending a cool spring day in the greenhouse is just heaven for me, even with the tedium of dealing with tiny seeds one at a time! The peppers are all up and in their own cells, but it is still to cold to let them spend the night in the greenhouse, so I keep the truck on the driveway and take them back and forth until it is above 50 at night.

When I went out after supper to close up the barn, I noticed a beautiful light around coloring the mountains through the bare trees. The mountains will be hidden soon when the trees leaf out. I went up to the shed roof and stepped out the window to take a few photos at sunset.

spring continues

The garlic bed is beginning to show signs of faster growth in the first photo. The plumcot tree is almost in bloom and the Nanking cherry bushes are busting out. But this is at least a week later than the usual year because of the cold winter and spring.

Peas

Spring begins

March 4, 2010...When I went out to pour hot water in the chicken waterers, I was happy to hear spring bird song, but the weather is still cold and windy! We just can't seem to warm up in NW SC this year. The snow of 3/2 has melted and I am hoping that is the last one this year. Because of this cold spring I am late planting my spring seeds, so maybe I will skip spring and go straight to summer plantings....not a chance! Who could wait?

I have planted English peas by the fenceling and potatoes in the winter carrot bed that the deer demolished a few weeks ago. They think they will still find carrots there, so they are tearing that up looking for them, even though I covered it with light row cover. That's OK, those potato seeds were old leftovers from last year and I planted them too early because they were sprouting all over the place. I'll take my chances and plant over again if they don't make it.

We moved the greenhouse to a new location with a perfect orientation to the sun and against the wind: facing the southwest with woods on the northeast side. The ends aren't closed up yet, so working is a cold affair in there. I have many seeds to get planted very soon.

This afternoon I will plant the pepper seeds, but they will stay inside with the water heater and the geothermal mechanics until they sprout. Then they can go in the greenhouse. Tomato seeds go into flats next.