The start of a plague

I received a single black berry transplant from Nate (Sarah's bro-in-law). Anyways it's great he was able to give me one. This little guy should take off quite rapidly and hopefully taking over much of the side of the garage. The concern of lead entering the fruit is minimal based on my research. It seems that fruiting bushes and trees do not deposit lead and other heavy metals in to the fruit. This is why I chose to plant this guy directly in the existing soil. The rose plant I moved from the front yard has done great back here. Hopefully the two can be frenemies.

So much dirt!!

Here's what my car looked like with all of the soil in it. I was without a doubt riding on the axle. I was halfway through loading the car and was wondering why I hadn't rented the Menard's truck. Oh well, the car survived and just needed a good vacuuming.



In total there were:

• 7 bags of vermiculite (3.3 cu ft)
• 11 bags of Peat Moss (2.2 cu ft)
• 5 bags of New Plant Life mushroom compost (New Plant Life, 0.75 cu ft)
• 2 bags of New Plant Life composted manure (New Plant Life, 0.75 cu ft)
• 4 bags of Dr. Earth's Natural Choice All Purpose Compost (All Purpose Compost, 1.5 cu ft)
• 4 bags of a composted cow manure that I'll need to find the name of, 1.5 cu ft
• 6 bags of Back to Nature: Nature's Blend which is a mix of cotton burr, manure, humate, and alfalfa, 1.0 cu ft

Here's it stacked:

All in all the biggest pain was mixing the soil. SO MUCH WORK. Oh well I did the tarp method but modified it with keeping the tarp in the bed so I could just shovel/slide the soil out. Once I had enough soil mounded on the one side I could removed the tarp completely and just spread out the soil. Here's what the finished product looks like:

New City, Fresh Start

I'm in an urban environment now and don't have the access to farmland like the last garden. I've built some raised beds in preparation for next year's season. Don't be surprised if I jump start and *attempt* to grow some things in the winter. Here's the beds without soil.


My mom and a few gardening friends recommended the Square Foot Gardening method by Mel Bartholomew. He came up with the original method in the 70's and has since revised his ways. I bought his most recent book (All New Square Foot Gardening). The idea is that you base everything on high quality soil and proper placement. His big push is for raised beds broken down in to square feet. I'll chime in more about the process as time goes on. Next step is to fill the beds with Mel's mix, which is 1/3 multi-source compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite by volume.

Finally caught up

This week has been nonstop expected thunderstorms that end up being noting but scattered showers. This has made it difficult to go out to the farm, but here's the update.

Finally, the FIRST tomato!!!!!! The one on the bottom is the heirloom that was very very fleshy. It was amazing!!!



Tracey and I were trying to decide what to cook and this is what we came up with. Well tracey came up with the grilled mushrooms and onions with a pepper sauce for the tacos. I wanted to use the tomato in the guacamole. Here is our final work of art.



Over the weekend I completely disassembled and cleaned the found tandem. It took a lot of episodes of pushing daisies but I completed it. It took 3 chains!! Any how here is the awesome tandem! Being able to change gears has made this thing so fun. You can really cruise on the flats and on the hills just shift down so it's very easy.

7/11 - Sean's Birthday!

Sean's birthday was coming up and I was trying to decide what to make him for his birthday. I ultimately decided to make him breakfast which I decided on:

Vegan Frenchtoast with candied Pecans.



I got the blackberries from the farmer's market. Other than that nothing was local/from the farm, but his next surprise was. We have a lot of carrots at the garden, what's a better way to use carrots than to make a carrot cake! Here's how it turned out:



I wonder what he wished for. Anyways here are some pictures from the garden.

To brighten our day here is what decided to bloom:



Here's a great helper and so that you can get an idea how tall these guys are.



Here are the in progress blackberries, YUM!



These are SOOOOOOoooo close to being ready. I'm so impatient!



For sean's birthday derek did a bbq/ cook out. It was a lot of fun and a lot of peopel joined. But derek wanted to cook some of the chickens he butchered. I didn't take part in the butchering because I didn't know they were going to do it and I arrived to the farm later than I told derek. I was going to add a picture of the beer can chicken cooking but figured I'd skip it.

Sweet Find

So we've been doing lots of pickling. This turns out to be pretty rough since our kitchen is tiny with a short slanted ceiling, no vent fan, and no A/C. The vinegar fumes have been getting to our heads. Here's a few days later.

This trip's pick:



Here are some awesome/great tasting beans. They are called dragon tongues and I first had them from my parent's CSA last year with Dea Dia. They are great people so if you can get in on their CSA, it was great!



The cabbage is coming along.



First of the bell peppers developing.



The ground cherries forming.



These guys still haven't produced any eggs.



The HIGHLIGHT of the trip. We found a tandem that someone was throwing out. Oh man it's awesome. Now to rebuild/clean it up.



Time to use the pressure canner.



I realize I am keeping these short but I am trying to catch up.

Catching up

Here are some photos of a few days later after the nasty bug attacks. Luckily we didn't have to use DEET.

Before we headed out to the farm this is what came in the mail:



I'm excited to get to use this.

There isn't much to report as far as what the garden looks like but here is the days pick:



We picked lots and lots of cucumbers and beets. What's the best thing to do with cucumbers? Pickles!! Also a great opportunity to use my new mandolin that lisa & jim got me.



Here's what the pickled beets look like.



Now to wait 3 weeks to eat them...