mid-summer garden

Every year I start out my garden with such high hopes and every year it doesn't live up to them. But every year I have some successes among my failures. This year I've been very impressed with Fortex climbing beans. These seeds were given me by my mother and it is a wonderfully tastey, high-producing climbing bean and an heirloom plant at that! Another plant that was very impressive was the garlic. It has a different growing cycle then I've ever had to deal with before (planted in the early fall and harvested mid -summer) but it produced quite a bit and was absolutely no maintainence. Chinese cabbage was another super easy big producer. This year was my first year to try Yard Long Beans. They are easy to grow and producing quite a bit, but I'm the only one in the house who really likes the flavor. Kohlrabi was easy to grow and tastes good, but it didn't produce that much. Sure looks wierd. Naturally the bush beans did great. The onion sets are the perfect plant, they grow every year and you can harvest them at anytime. Radishes produce dependablely, but no one really likes them that much. Swiss chard was easy, but it isn't anyone's favorite either. Leaf lettuce is easy and produces pretty good as long as the weather is cool. And, as far as I can tell, sweet potatoes are a good garden plant. they worked last year and they sure look like they are happily growing this year. Rhubarb. I like plants I stick in the ground and ignore. Rhubarb definately qualifies as low maintainence. I guess I should mention apples, even if this is an "off" year for apples. When they choose to produce they do it very impressively (they usually only produce big crops every other year). And strawberries. They are easy and taste fabulous, but my strawberries are on the tiny side. We still eat them. I guess I should throw in raspberries. They're easy to grow and taste great but I never get enough to bring in the house.

Things I have trouble with year after year-- spinach. I never get hardly any at all. Sweet peas. I get enough to make it worth my while, but they sure never make it to the freezer. They taste good picked fresh and popped in the mouth, but that is about all I ever get. Potatoes. I get a crop's worth, but they are so cheap in the store they're hardly worth growing. Carrots. I'm really lousy at growing carrots. Tomatoes. You'd think I'd have this one down pat, but I really need to talk to someone who's a tomato expert. I get some but never the huge amounts most gardeners get.

Plants that hardly seem worth the effort-- Broccoli, cabbage, eggplant, nasturiums. Let me just say nasturiums are a lovely flower and are supposedly edible, but no one likes the flavor, so it is more of a bragging right then a vegetable.

stay at home mom

Whenever anyone asks me what I do I say I'm a mom. I've been a stay-at-home mom since my oldest was little. This upcoming school year will be my youngest daughter's last year of homeschool before she goes to public high school (her choice). I love my job. It doesn't pay well, but it the best job ever. This past weekend I attended a memorial for a friend who died of cancer recently. It was held at the lovely home of his niece. I had never met the niece before but in the course of getting acquainted with her she told me she was a teacher and stressed how she could NEVER stay at home, just sitting around. I managed to keep my mouth shut (not one of my greater talents). She had a preschooler and was pregnant with her second child. I felt sorry for her, she has no idea what she is missing. How I treasured those days with young children. Wearing beyond belief, but a fabulous adventure. It was a huge adjustment to go from college classes and working to staying home with the boys, but I loved it. I read to them, we explored nature together, we entertained ourselves, cooked together, played together, we grew up together. I don't remember much "sitting around" going on. The biggest freedom I remember (which I still have) is the freedom to learn whatever I wanted. I've had tons of people tell me I can do anything. Well, I can. I can learn anything I'm interested in. Largely, because I'm a stay-at-home mom and I decide what I'm doing with my time. I've been able to learn a huge variety of skills/crafts/hobbies. I haven't learned to repair cars or computers, but that is because I don't want to, not because I can't or because I don't have the time. Now I have five of my seven kids out of the house. This is my last year of homeschooling. I don't really qualify as a stay-at-home mom anymore after this year. Great job. I'll miss it.

my products

I was hoping you could actually see some of the stuff I make/design/sell at the farmer's market. I'm having fun with this. Can you see the Panda soap? It's all chocolate and vanilla colored. That's actually made from chocolate. It's a lovely soap, all that cocoa butter makes it so soothing. This is only half of the table, but it gives an idea of the sort of stuff I sell. The weather on Saturday was delightful and we had big crowds. I love it when people come up and tell me they love what they've bought. They did that quite a bit on Saturday.

at the farmer's market

This is my stand at the farmer's market. We were right in the middle of unloading, so the back hatch on the minivan isn't closed yet. I'm talking with the Bee Guy. he's the one I get my beeswax from. As you can see my wares are displayed in baskets.

library display part two

library display

I was asked to provide a display for the library this month. I choose to show off a variety of things I learned to do. I learned all of these from books I read at the library. The little girl dresses use French handsewing (by machine). I even made the stuffed doll. I made one of those dolls for each of my girls. They were well played with. If you look at the display the dresses are on top, if you look carefully at the right hand side there is a Japanese purse, I used Omiage to do it. The second level has soap and gardening and chicken raising (which is mainly what this blog is devoted to). The third level has a couple of cakes that I whipped up just for this display. They'll be pretty nasty by the end of the month! I also have sugar flowers. That was a fun craft to learn. Insanely too much work, but they look pretty cool. The bottom level has knitting, spinning and making buckskin.

mid-summer

I know, I know, I need to take some pictures. I really am a lousy photographer. It is mid summer here. July is as bad as it gets, weather-wise. It is hot and humid beyond belief some days. We spend most of our time indoors during July. I really want to keep my garden going well into the fall. This is the time of year when I always feel a bit defeated. The only thing I can think of to put in are more beans, but by this time the bugs have figured out that I plant a lot of beans and are right there and good to go. The chickens scratched up my beautiful cucumber plants while I was on vacation and I pulled the sickly plants out, put fresh compost in and some new cucumber seeds. They've already popped up. It is amazing how fast things grow in the summer time.

Right now I'm getting a few beans, some lovely Yard Long Beans (a Chinese vegetable, super easy to grow, why don't more people grow these things?), onions, hot peppers, and that's about it. Oh yeah, a few tomatoes. I really am not a great tomato grower. I wish I was. I need to learn how to do it better. AND we're eating the garlic that we recently pulled out of the garden.

Oh, and the chickens are laying pretty good.