July 31 mid-week harvest

First at the community I've picked few beans, couple of hot peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, few onions, one large tomato and a handful of yellow pear cherry tomatoes; and nice size cabbage - two other much larger ones walked away to be someone else's dinners (which is fine, as I told people they can take what they want).  One zucchini broke when i tossed it toward the bag so I'll eat it, but the rest of the veggies went to the community kitchen. 

At the home front, I got few baby beets and carrots - neither one is really sizing up well; few cherry tomatoes  and regular tomatoes, and potatoes. I started peeling few to cook up before I realized that they weren't weighted in, so you have one "prepped" and the other "left over" picture. 

 

I didn't put fresh manure on the beds this year and I'm paying the price - everything is very small and not growing as well as it should be, so lesson learned and in fall I'm getting a truckload of manure for all beds. 

Not in pictures are two bags of beans that I picked at CSA farm last night - I'm not keeping any of it, as it's going to the NYC on Saturday with CSA owner. It's my best playground where I can feel the silky black dirt in my fingers for few hours each week and I get to pick great stuff :)

Harvest at the end of July

It's been a long week away from home for me on business and very tiring, so the only thing I got done this weekend was to harvest ripe veggies from home and community garden and then just stay in bed and rest. In next few days I'll be catching up on garden chores like weeding. So here is the combined garden harvest from both sides. From home it's last of the wineberries, yellow and purple beans, tomatoes and peppers. Some of the tomatoes were picked green as couple of bushes died off suddenly and it was either take them or lose them, but they'll ripen on the counters and will be used in salads.

 

In the community garden, green and yellow beans,  cucumbers, broccoli, zucchini and tomatoes. Looks like rabits and groundhog found their way into community garden as well as I had to throw away quite a few half-eaten ripe tomatoes so I picked all that were low hanging and would be damaged.

How does your garden grow these days? 

Re-seeding garden and harvest

Sometimes you just have to start over. So the bed striped of leftover stalks, added composted sheep manure and a bag of topsoil to add higher level. Then planted few of the zucchini and yellow squash; Soliel Beans, carrots, parsnips, salad and cucumbers. Also seeded few broccoli and cauliflower but not sure if the direct-sow in beds will work out or not. Time will tell.

On a more positive note, new berries came into play! First my poor yellow raspberry finally gave us whole 2 berries to try. Deer have been stripping it down each year and this year it grew into the main garden and one stalk survived. So there is hope for the future.

Black raspberries coming to an end and groundhog is actively helping me pick them out from lower branches. He also apparently loving new berries that are just starting to ripen and keeps getting to them faster than I can get them picked.
In the community garden, zucchini are coming faster than I can get them organized, which makes my coworkers and food pantry very happy. I also have plenty of beans, first peppers and cucumbers and a nice head of broccoli.

At home few beans still alive and enough to feed me and my hubby. Hopefully newly planted will grow well. I also seeded few beans couple of weeks ago at the CSA farm where I help out so I should have them in waves. And at home my pretty orchid opened up - isn't it lovely? So pristine white and delicate.

So there you have it. You win some, you lose some. And you move on. 

Midweek Community harvest

I went to the community garden last night and came home with a boatload of squash, couple of very large heads of broccoli, lots of beans and first two cucumbers - I am loving this season at the community plot. 

 

 And then picked some more goodies in the garden as I keep clearing out beds for replanting - a handful of tomatoes and leftover purple peas, few snow peas, first few peppers and cucumber, onions and beans. Bean seem to be picked up after few days of rain so it's making me very happy. And of course my black raspberries, though they are coming to the end of their season sadly.

  

This morning I dropped off zucchini and beans at the community kitchens so they can use for their meals. It's all good when you have enough to share :)