Market Garden -- Update #2

Here is how the market garden looked on Saturday. You will notice that the corn is continuing to come in and the sunflowers are also coming up. Unfortunately the Red Nordland potatoes are no where to be found and if you look at the surrounding pasture you can see what a toll the drought is taking on everything.



For comparison here are the photos from July 3^rd



and June 19^th



Best I can remember we haven't had a decent rain since Memorial Day.

First Corn!!!

Nothing like the first sweet corn to make you remember why we are doing all this. Lack of rain has really been depressing and making this entire endeavor more difficult than last year, but the taste of the first corn fresh from our garden makes it all seem worthwhile.


Last night I grilled up some New York strip steaks from Legacy Manor Farm, and some fresh zucchini from our garden and had a delicious local dinner.

Market Garden -- Update #1

Here is the first of my promised market garden updates. The corn is doing surprisingly well given the little rain. The first planting has tasseled out and the other three plantings are all going strong. We have our first beans in with our corn and will likely need to start harvesting them this week. We have already harvested some zucchini and there are numerous yellow squash coming along. The yukon gold and fingerling potatoes are continuing to do well, but I am still waiting for the red nordlands that I re-planted to pop. I am hopeful that they will soon, otherwise we will have a diminished potato harvest this year. On Sunday I dug two more of the floundering rows from the upper plot. While the potatoes are still tasty, their yield leaves much to be desired.

Market Garden

Here is a picture of our market garden taken on Sunday (click on image for an expanded view). My wife and I (read my wife) are doing a CSA this year, and while a lot of the produce is planted up in our kitchen garden this large plot will provide much of the late season goodies. As you can see (or not see as the case may be) not all that I have listed is up yet, however as of Monday night all of it is at least in the ground.

Everything on the right hand side is Danielle's. My only contribution is plowing and tilling of the ground.

I planted four rounds of corn approximately each two weeks apart. The first corn should be ready in early July if the crazy weather hasn't effected it too much. Danielle is enamored with the native American method of co-planting corn, beans and squash the so called three sisters. The traditional way to do this is put all three seeds into a mound. She modified this by intermixing rows of the three crops. The brilliance of this planting system is that the beans fix nitrogen into the soil --which corn needs loads of-- the corn provides a trellis for the beans to climb, and the squash foliage shades the corn roots and crowds out weeds. This is our first year of trying this symbiotic planting so we will have to see how it works.

My other main crop is potatoes. We have three varieties planted in this plot. The Yukon Golds at the top were planted first and are thriving. I have hilled them up repeatedly and they are starting to flower. The Fingerlings were planted somewhat later but are coming up strong and have good looking foliage. The Red Nordlands are actually the result of a failed early crop in an upper field. Both the Yukons and Nordlands were grown from seed potatoes from last years harvest. I planted the Nordlands somewhat early and our cold wet early spring and hot dry late spring was not kind to them. The plants did come up but between the less than stellar weather conditions and the increased potato bug pressure --planted potatoes in the same plot two years in a row-- they were already dieing back. I thus took a gamble, harvested what I could and replanted the potatoes in the market garden. I just got them in the ground this weekend, much later than I would like to plant potatoes but I figured it was worth a shot.

I hope to take this same picture every couple weeks to really appreciate how the garden changes throughout the season.

Garden Tilling and Corn In

Spring is definitely moving on although we are still getting some cold snaps, and may even get some snow flurries later this week. We picked up a walk behind tiller this weekend and turned over the kitchen garden. Danielle had a bunch of seedlings in a makeshift cold frame which we needed to get into the ground. I am pleased with the way the garden soil is developing. It was much easier to work this year and all the organic matter from our composted kitchen scraps and chicken bedding that we worked in has really helped to break up the clay. Maybe in a couple more years we will be able to skip the tilling altogether.

After work on Tuesday (April 3^rd) Sam and I carted the tiller to the upper field, prepped the soil and put in some rows of corn. We had some White and Bi-Color super sweet left over from last year. Not sure how successful the germination will be on this seed but figured it was not going to do us any good sitting in the barn. If we do get some to grow from this planting it will be a nice early crop of corn. We are going to plant new seed down where the pigs have plowed and fertilized for us after they are shipped off to the butchers next week.

Last of the Tomatoes

We have had our first frosts the last couple nights. We were able to get some row covers over the lettuce and spinach, but there seemed no good way to protect the tomatoes. Here are the last of the San Marzano and Beefsteak tomatoes, in half bushel baskets my Mom was able to acquire for us. We are going to store them down in the cellar with the potatoes in hope that they will slowly ripen and extend our fresh tomato season.

Filling the Hay Loft

This morning Julia and I took the tractor and trailer up to the corn patch and harvested all of the remaining corn stalks. While this last planting of corn was a complete bust in terms of ear corn it did provide a fair amount of stalks. We cut down the stalks at the ground and bundled them with some twine into 6 large bales.

After driving them back to the barn I threw them up into the loft and Emily helped arrange them. Latter in the day Danielle picked up 24 bales of straw which we also put up in the loft. As you can see we have quite a bit of supplies for the winter (from left to right it is corn, straw, hay). The corn will be used as a treat for the goats as well as feed for the pigs we are getting in a month.

First Corn Harvest

Well I have to admit with all of the problems I was having with the deer that I was considering not growing corn next year. Forget that! Last night we harvested some corn from our first planting and it had to be the best corn I ever tasted. Mind you I am extremely biased but my family seemed to enjoy it also. I originally picked five ears so that everyone could have a taste. That was not nearly sufficient so Julia and I went back out to the field to get some more. While we were out there she decided that we should pick a couple extra ears since she wanted some for lunch today. Julia and I ended up eating three ears each. I have to admit it made me really happy to have the corn go over so big.



Needless to say I will definitely be planting corn again next year.

Shortest Corn in the East!

No this is not some new dwarf corn variety. This white super sweet planted on May 7^th should be 6 to 7 feet tall, but the deer have done a good job of stunting its growth. While never reaching full height it has started to silk out and form cobs. I guess we will just have to wait and see if we get any edible corn out of this first planting.

The second planting which went in on June 4^th is doing noticeably better. It is already as tall as the first planting while being four weeks behind. My neighbors corn, not more than 100 yds away is tall and almost untouched by the deer. I talked with them this weekend and plan on picking up some Irish Spring soap to hang from posts around the outside of the corn field since it has seemed to work for them. Hopefully this will keep the deer browseing down to a minimum and allow the second and third planting to do better. Next year I will have the electric fence setup which will hopefully alleviate the deer problem.

Planted Last of the Corn

Since we have harvested two rows of red potatoes I had more room in the plot. After tilling up the soil I finished planting out the two sections of super sweet corn as well as a new long strip where the potatoes once were. If things work out this latest batch of corn will be ready in the middle of September. My early corn is doing ok. The deer have taken a toll on it, but the recent rains have really helped a lot. I am hopeful that the corn is large enough now that we will be able to get some ears off of it soon. The first planting that went in on May 7th should be ready in the next two weeks or so, but I think the dry spring and deer have delayed it some.
The bi-color super sweet.

Here you can see the white super sweet, the last row of red potatoes, and the long strip which was just planted with bi-color.

More Corn and Coop Work

The corn I planted roughly a month ago has continued to come in nicely. I planted some more rows today to space out our crop. Hopefully, the deer will share some of it with us.

I also framed out the roof for the chicken coop. Danielle and the kids are going on a trip next weekend so I hope to get the sheathing and the metal roofing and finish up the coop.

Corn coming up!

Last night the kids and I were up in the field doing some weeding when we noticed that the sweet corn was coming up. So far the corn is ~ 1 inch high, but you can clearly see the rows. We will have to wait and see if it makes it or the deer get it. There are numerous deer tracks through out the field, and the night before Emily and I saw a doe in the neighbors field not 50 yards away.

Pop Corn and Chicken Coop

Sam helped me sow in the hybrid popcorn this morning. I then spent an hour or so weeding and hilling up the potatoes. These are going to be the tastiest potatoes I ever had!

Put in the posts for the new chicken coop. It is going to have a 24' x 12' footprint and be attached to the barn on the end. Need to order the lumber to finish it this week since we have 50 new peeps which need a home to be transferred to in the near future. I am also going do some retro-fitting of the barn at the same time. Most importantly I am going to widen the door out to the pastures so that I can bring the tractor in and out that way. As it is now I need to drive through the lawn to get out to the pastures. I will also replace some rotted sheeting and give it all a fresh coat of paint.

Weeding and Planting Corn

The potatoes are still coming in, but so are the weeds. So I got out there today and cultivated around the potatoes so they would not have to compete with the weeds.

I also re-worked the ground around the potatoes to prep it for the corn. I pulled the middle buster through a number of times which did a good job of removing the grass clods then ran the disc until the bed was as preped as I could get it. I was able to borrow a planter from my neighbor and put in 4 short rows of super sweet white and super sweet mixed corn on either side of the potatoes.

We are getting a nice gently rain tonight which we desperately need. Hopefully we will get enough to soak in the seeds.