Views Around the Estate

Here are the latest views from the gardens.

Bush beans and potatoes. I only had three beds left for potatoes and beans, but I had more potatoes than I thought, so I had to tuck them in anywhere there was room. Combine this with all the volunteer potatoes from 2008 and even 2007, and I will be over run with spuds this year! I really must work out a better storage system for them, because they sprout before I get to eat them all!

Cukes and sunflowers. At least I think those are cukes. Not too many squash family seeds sprouted this year, so I kept adding miscellaneous seeds to the beds to the point where I'm not sure what is sprouting where!

Garlic. The garlic is growing very well. I snapped off the scapes this last week - they were lovely with their curlicue shapes. Bagged several up to give to friends, but no one seemed to want them. I think one needs to be in an up-scale urbanesque area to find a market for scapes. (Yes, those are potatoes with the garlic...leftovers from 2008.)

Carrots. I have six or seven carrot patches squeezed between the onion patches. This last weekend I divvied up several of the carrot clumps, moving them into areas where carrot seeds didn't sprout. Looks like I may need to move some more. The sunshine and rain from the last couple of days made many of the carrot tops just shoot up. My goal is long carrots this year, not hundreds of midget carrots. Hopefully the transplanting will help with that.

Pumpkins. I had to dig into the remains of the manure pile to get enough in one spot to plant the pumpkins this year, but there seems to be enough "juice" left for them to do well (so far). All we need now is some sunshine!

Broccoli and cauliflower. Yes, they are there under that row cover by the crabapple tree. I haven't peeked under since I planted them...don't want to be discouraged. This year I'm thinking of leaving the row cover in place as a foil for the cabbage whites and their larvae.

Peas. Lots of peas and they've started to flower. None are terribly tall, though. Maybe some are just short varieties, but I suspect the lack of sunshine has also stunted their growth.

Moving onto the flowerbeds, we find several plants in bloom. The lupines are pretty much finsihed, but now we have toadflax,

foxgloves,

verbascum,

garlic chives,

valerian,

mountain bluets,

and Maltese cross.

The splashes of color brighten things up, even on overcast days.

Fall Plantings

Although I have mostly put the garden to bed for the year, I still have more garlic to plant! The mail order bulbs have now all come in, and I must say that the latest batches have been more inspiring than the first one was! The bulbs that have recently arrived (Inchelium, Chesnok, Kazakstan, and German Hardy, which I suspect is German White) are of good size and quality - almost as nice as what I got in Sharon Springs! So, sometime in the next week or two I must get the last of the garlic planted. If it all grows, I may have garlic to sell in '09!

Meanwhile, I suppose it is about time to pull the rutabagas and carrots. I grab a few more carrots each time I go by the garden, and although they are small, they do mean that many fewer carrots I need to buy at the store!

And with all the harsh frosts we've been getting, it is probably time to actually move the pumpkins inside and set a weekend aside for doing pumpkin puree. I've been using a "recipe" for puree which utilizes the oven rather than the stove (who wants to peel and cube fourteen pumpkins?). It's pretty much the same as cooking acorn squash - cut them in half (and remove the seeds), put them cut-side down in a roasting pan with a cup of water, and cook in the oven at 300-350*F for up to 90 minutes - until "meltingly soft." Scoop and freeze.