Final Harvest of 2012

Lindsay and her friends Amber and Matt collected the final harvest of 2012 this afternoon.  Below is a photograph showing half of that harvest.  Yes, the blue bin is full of tomatillos.

 

Another great year in the Namestnik garden!

Let's Get It Started!

As you may have read in my previous post, (Official Diagnosis.... In Over My Head) I might have gone a bit overboard with my seed purchasing this year. Well, we can't let all those seeds go to waste (plus I need to prove to Scott that all his eye-rolling at me was unnecessary because I can totally pull this off), so it was time to get planting.

After a recent "run-in" with Strongbow cider I have given up drinking so my bar seemed like the perfect place to transition into a make-shift greenhouse. The planters contain starts for 4 different kinds of onions, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, roma tomatoes, wax peppers, bell peppers, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, brussel sprouts, okra, eggplant, cauliflower, artichokes, cabbage, and leeks. As you can see we even have them in warming trays and under plant lights.

Looks like a good start to our summer garden. After a few weeks growing indoors they will hopefully be good and ready to transplant outdoors.

Now I'm just left to wonder which one will sprout first! Any guesses?

Goats Got Game

Under the cover of darkness on Thursday night, we shipped the goats back to Prairie Winds Farm. In less than a quarter of the time we expected, they decimated the vegetation in our garden.

Before

After

Before

After

A job well done, goats!

It's A Dirty Job, But Someone's Got To Do It

Lindsay and I let the weeds in our vegetable garden get a little out of control this year. I'm amazed at how productive our garden was, given that Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album), Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), and Giant Foxtail (Setaria faberi) were more prevalent than the broccoli, corn, tomatoes, etc. that we planted. This is a bit embarrassing, but below is a photo of how our garden looked as of yesterday.


Somebody has got to clean up this mess. That's why we've called on the goats from Prairie Winds Farm to help us out.

Here they are... three Fainting Goats and two Nigerian Dwarf Goats. We are borrowing these gluttonous grazers and plan to keep them for about a month, until the water in their trough begins to freeze. Hopefully by that time they will have devoured our weeds and fertilized the garden so that it's ready to go for next year. They really seem to enjoy broccoli; they arrived yesterday in the late afternoon, and by this morning, only the stems remained.

Be sure to check out the Prairie Winds Farm blog by clicking here.

Garden Update

My parents often ask me how our garden is doing, so I figured I would post a photo of our recent harvest to show them.

We have recently picked tomatillos, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, cherry tomatoes, pepperoncinis, banana peppers, lemon cucumbers, wax beans, cantaloupe, broccoli, zucchini, black beans, corn, watermelon, carrots, and tomatoes; lettuce, spinach, raddishes, and green beans are done for the year. Our next few days will be spent canning, making salsas and sauces, and snacking on the leftovers, as we continue to gather more from our productive garden.