The ups and downs of farming

Well, I went out to get the newspaper sunday morning and saw that one of the main branches of the peach tree had broken and I lost about 1/3 of my peaches. Such is life I guess. The silverlining of this is the branch was about 3-4 in in dia at the break so I have some peach wood to turn. Also saw my first squirrel damage so tonight I will be 'netting' the tree.
Crickets have invaded and a few grasshoppers are eating the corn. The tomatoes are finishing up as well. The peppers, cucumbers and basil are still doing well so there is hope.

Farmers Market tomorrow

Tomorrow is another Saturday, so another Farmers Market. With the heat the garden is definately slowing down. But I will have tomatoes, peppers, spaghetti squash, a couple of zucchini, and fresh herbs (basil, possibly some lemon verbena, parsely, and dill.) Plus the usually wood turning projects (pens, bowls, wine stoppers, napkin ring holders, etc...)
Hope to see you there!

Another busy week

Well, it has been busy and not so much with the garden. Actually the garden is starting to slow down for the summer. The squash is about done (no help from some kind of sudden wilt disease.) The Roma tomatoes and Razzleberry tomatoes which were both determinate types are finishing up. The cherry and yellow are starting a second try after a bout with leaf foot bugs as well as spider mites. Eggplant is going slow and the 'pumpkin on a stick' is starting to change color. About the only things doing really well right now are the cucumber (it is massive) and the peppers. The bush beans are sort of 'hanging out' not doing too much, I think it is just too hot and the watermelon might actually flower. The last batch of corn is silking and hopefully I will be looking at harvest end of next week. Basil is doing well, dill is seeding out and the lavender is flowering.
So what to do? Start planting seeds for the fall. You start planting mid/end of July for the fall garden so the seeds need to start now. I am also trying corn by transplant to get a better stand for the next three groups.
So far this is what is planted. (I will get variety names later)
6 kinds of summer squash
1 kind of winter squash (and 1 type still to be planted)
6 types of tomatoes (Most are small types, no razzleberries or anything large, mainly grape/cherry types of various colors.)
Corn (when this is transplated then I will start a new batch)
Sunflowers (3 types)

To be planted (some when the seeds get here, some in about a month)
Another type of eggplant
Soybean
3 types of peppers
Pole beans (need to make the trellises)
Other stuff as well (can't remember right now)

Also, the plants do not like the city water, which I think is part of the problem. Oh well, it is either that or nothing. I do have some rain water but I do not have the type to hand water and I use that water to fertilize.

Peach tree is starting to show signs of maturing. And I am down to my last two ornamental pepper plants to sell at farmers.

Yeah! Success!

So here is the garden as of 6/13/10. The picture is not the greatest since the garden is partly in the shade already. The large cottonwood tree gives a bit of shade in the evening to part of the garden. I was looking at a picture from 5/11/10 and was amazed at how much it has grown in 33 days.

Getting frustrated with blogspot

Well, I was hoping to post a new picture but blogspot is having issues. But everything is growing and with the 90+ heat things are starting to slow down for the summer. The peppers are doing great, the corn, part 2 is just starting to get ready to harvest and corn part 3 is tasselling out so since I have staked them I am thinking it will just be 2-3 more weeks till harvest so I can just see what I get. Corn part 1 has been removed and will be seeded this weekend as well as starting tomato, and squash transplants. I am still debating on lettuce in some planter boxes in the shade. I might just start them as transplants and then move them to the planters.
The other decision is if I want to add the third shelf to the seed starter setup now or in the winter. Winter would be easier and I don't need to plant as much for the fall garden (some can be done outside so I think I will be OK. Hopefully the seeds and seed starter trays will come this week.
Farmer's market has been doing well but the woodworking starting is keeping me busy and I am debating on a Wednesday market this week. Have to decide tonight. Hmmm....

Daily harvesting = little time for blogging

Well, I have been fairly quiet since I am harvesting a bowl of tomatoes a day now. It doesn't leave alot of time for other things. Plus there is the weekly spraying of Neem Oil. The squash is doing much better but the mites have found the tomatoes so there is more spraying to be done. (I am so glad that this is organic.) Plus I have been battleing leaf footed bugs (relative of stink bug) and sharp shooters.

So all this keeps be very busy, plus there were two farmers markets this past week (friday/saturday) and I am selling alot of my woodturnings as well, so back to production in the garage. And I like to have a little bit of a social life.

Hopefully will update soon.

Crop Circles?

I think I know how crop circles are formed now. We got about 3/4" of rain last night with some strong winds, which I slept right through. I went out this morning to check the rain barrels (all but one are full) and the garden looked really good, except the corn. The currently ready corn and the batch that is in tassel right now were fine. It was the group that is still sort of short. This is the third time I have had some fall, but it has never been this bad. I wish they would all fall in one direction.

Since we are supposed to get more rain/thunderstorms I am just going to leave them today. I hope to pick up some soil this afternoon and prop them back up and mound some soil at the base and put some bamboo stakes in there and hopefully that will fix it.

Potatoes

Well, I guess I was wrong, I do have potatoes. Mainly blue ones, some reds. I discovered this after some extra digging. Then when I actually found a bucket worth of potatoes I realized that there were probably potatoes where I had planted beans two weeks before. I did this because on intial inspection I didn't find any and since the plants hadn't flowered I figured that crop was a bust. Well, I moved the beans, we will see how many survive and dug down on the other side and sure enough there were pototoes. Not too many, but a few. The red ones were much smaller than the blues ones. I did not move the cucumber since it had been there too long.

Well, lesson learned and hopefully if I can keep some of the blue potatoes from sprouting in the next two months I can use a few of them for seed potatoes for the fall.