August After Rain

So much green and glorious bounty

"The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone."  ~Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Okra flower-gorgeous!

 

Pears

 

Can She Make a Cherry Pie?

On Sunday we made a trip to Hastings to harvest Oriel's cherries. The full day festival carried over into Monday morning to finish the pitting. Oriel is Christy's mom and is nearing 100 years of age. She still makes a mean cherry pie. See the proof here on NET's Nebraska Stories: http://netnebraska.org/interactive-multimedia/television/nebraska-stories-oriels-cherry-pie
Her two laden trees are mere babies at around 15 years old.

the trees

cherries, cherries, and more cherries

full sun, over 90 degrees, heat stroke avoided

15 buckets

On Monday morning the rest of the gang got in on finishing up the cherry pitting. We see pies, clafloutis, jam, jelly, focaccia in the future.

All photos courtesy of Christy.

Garden Miscellany

Christy has taken some gorgeous photographs of the garden this week and here we share them. Thanks, Christy!

Lots of Swiss chard, people. Eat!

Kale begging to be eaten. Chips anyone?

Butternut Squash Blossoms. Think these first ones are male.

Richard in Tomato Whisperer mode.

Up close and very personal.

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Garlic Harvest 2014

To dream that there is garlic in the house is lucky.”--Richard Folkard, Plant Lore, 1884

Bumper crop this year. Plenty of rain in the spring. The bulbs are big and beautiful. This year we tried some elephant garlic (which we've just learned is more like a leek than garlic), and were rewarded with huge bulbs--some larger than a softball. Gardeners should have enough garlic to last until 2015 when the first spring garlic appears.

Sorting out the bounty

Thanks, Marni, for sharing out the spoils!

End of June Garden Musings

Two years ago we harvested about 100 peaches from two trees by the end of June. This year the peaches are a little slower. I'd say another week or so. They are incredibly plentiful, even with considerable thinning. There is at least one squirrel who is having a field day traveling from the mulberry tree to the peach tree. I saw him nibble at and pick a peach and then scamper back to the mulberry and chomp away. Ten minutes later I hear a thump and then see the half-eaten fruit on the ground. Rinse and repeat. Similar story with the cherries. We had a decent looking crop until the day we didn't. It was like a rapture. This time it was robins. Marni and I watched a robin not six feet away hop toward a lower branch which still had a few fruits, snatch that cherry and then hop a bit away and eat it. Karla says all we've done here is create a big salad and fruit bowl for the wildlife.

     

Five cups of gooseberries makes a dandy pie. Late June for those and the birds don't seem to much care for their tart aspect. Plus, the berries grow low on the undersides of very thorny branches. I swear that if unchecked gooseberries could overrun the world. The tips of these low-slung branches embed themselves in the ground and start growing!

Cucumbers have started and the herb bed flourishes. Lots of kale and Swiss chard. First beets and carrots.

Saturday Morning

For the moment, the community garden is weed-free. Eight families came together on this glorious morning to weed, water, plant, mulch, cut garlic scapes, tease out some strawberries, wash planting pots, thin peaches. Jenni treated us to fresh-from-the-garden tabouleh. Thanks for sharing your Saturday morning: Phil, Jenni, Gabe, Olive, Don, Dick, Christy, Mary, Marni, Key, Karla, and Hazel.

 

Spring Came Finally

Chrisy took these photos of early spring activity.

Garlic, strawberries, rhubarb, and asparagus are flourishing. Pear trees in full bloom. Peach bloom finished and cherry coming on. Goose and Service berries leafed out. Pawpaw the slowest.

Thanks to our own (B)Master(d) Gardener for double digging, weeding, mulching, pruning, cleaning, and with Marni, digging out the gutters for a free flow of bounty into our rain barrels.

Early planting by Mary and Marni of spinach, lettuces, peas, dry beans, collards, radishes,
beets, and carrots.

Warm season crops are hardening off under Marni's nurturing.

All hail spring!