Garden Friday

These daisies just make me happy

 Welcome back to another Garden Friday!

Although summer is still two weeks away,

the summer-like heat is keeping things hopping in the garden.

 The squash/sweet potato/cucumber bed is taking off.

We had a good amount of rain this past week,

and the crops are eatin' it up!

I even spied the first cucumber blossom.

 About half of this 3X8 bed is planted with sweet potatoes.

Before harvest time, the leaves will be enjoyed in salads.

Guess who decided to come to the party?

This Delicata squash was one of three varieties planted at the beginning of May,

but just popped up this week.

 Daily pickings of snap peas keeps 'em comin'.

 It looks like something is snacking on the okra in the straw bales,

but this crop is one tough cookie.

There isn't much that keeps it from providing food.

The watermelon, also planted in bales,

will have to be tweaked this weekend.

I'll need to provide a spot for them to wander.

 This container of cantaloupe is being grown vertically,

but I think it will soon outgrow the space.

Such a nice problem to have!

It does make me think about next season,

and the idea of creating a couple of new beds for melons

just might be in the works.

These bush beans were transplanted last week

into straw bales and started taking a turn for the better over the last few days.

Unfortunately, this year, the bales got so hammered with heavy rain

before they were even planted, that many of them are not as solid as they should be.

It may require me to build wooden boxes for them to sit in,

so that next year they have more support. 

It shouldn't affect the growing this year.

strawberries

 Leek was harvested this week and used to make a couple of dishes.

It's so wonderful to have a produce aisle 

right in the side yard.

 The oregano is flowering and the pollinators love it!

 A handful of garlic heads were put to the side,

so that I don't forget to save some for planting.

They were wrapped in brown butcher paper

and placed in a paper sack until planting time.

 Our neighbor gave us three of these containers,

leftover from some trees he planted.

They have come in so handy,

placed in various spots around the garden.

Whenever I'm weeding or pruning,

the bits and bobs just get thrown into them,

and then they are taken down to the compost heap.

 Milkweed is flowering, but so far, no caterpillars!

 Several of the sunflowers were blown over

with the wind and weight of the rain.

These lengths of conduit are a great solution.

The yarrow out by the mailbox has a hard time standing up.

I'll try to figure out a solution this weekend.

 We have grown sunflowers every summer for as long as I can remember,

but these are by far the tallest we've ever had in the garden.

Mammoth, indeed!

 Just look at the diameter of the stalks!

 Coneflowers are a favorite.

This beauty was found on the job site.

 Back home, another coneflower hosts a busy bee.

 On my daily walk, I discovered wild tickseed

and promptly started to gather seeds from spent plants.

Nature is always providing.

 Isn't this bloom just glorious?

Another stunner found on a different job site.

It's been a busy and productive week.

I'm so grateful to be surrounded by people I love,

folks I love working with,

and the beauty ever provided by Mother Nature.

What's going on in your summer garden?

Potato-Egg Salad

This combo potato/egg salad I made over the weekend

is one of the best things I've ever come up with.

It's thanks mostly to the incredibly easy mayo recipe 

I found on the website Downshiftology.

Lisa teaches how to cook simple, healthy food,

containing clean ingredients and no gluten.

Right up my alley.

In less than a minute, you'll have a jar of mayo

ready to add to all sorts of things, even if it's just sandwich bread.

The mayo recipe can be found here.

I've made mayo from scratch in the past,

but it always tasted a bit off.

The secret, as I learned in Lisa's video,

is that Extra Virgin Olive oil is not the preferred choice.

Using avocado or light olive oil does the trick

and creates a thick, luscious condiment that will keep for a week in the fridge.

 I doubt the egg salad will last that long,

but I already have plans to use the rest of the jar

on several other mayo-based recipes.

Potato Egg Salad

4-6 small red potatoes

1/2 small onion, chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

4 hard boiled eggs, chopped
salt and herbs to taste

After boiling the potatoes for 10-12 minutes,

drain them and replace them in the pot for a few minutes to dry out. 

Place in fridge to cool for at least 20 minutes.

To assemble the salad, peel potatoes and chop into bite-sized pieces,

then add to a bowl with chopped veg and eggs.

Add a good dollop of homemade mayo,

a pinch of salt and any fresh herbs you desire.

Mix together well and refrigerate for a few hours.

Enjoy!

Garden Friday

Welcome to Garden Friday!
The blooms are loving our summer-like conditions
and gifting us with amazing color!

In the veggie garden, the Swiss chard is doing fine,
despite the spike in the temperature.

 The squash has tripled its size in a week
and is getting ready to wrap itself around the trellis.

 The Yukon Gold potatoes that make up half of this bed
show signs of slowing down.
They will most likely be ready to harvest fairly soon.
We'll know when the greens start to die off and turn brown.

The sugar snap peas have been a tasty snack
when I'm working outside.
The trick with these is to keep on picking,
so they will keep producing.
No problem there!

This cantaloupe was transplanted to a container a couple of weeks ago.
It's flowering, so I'll give it a good dose of worm compost 
and watch it respond.

The strawberries have started putting out runners
which spill over the container and take root.
I'll be placing some organic soil mix all around it
and giving them ample room to grow.

The lone parsley out there is going to seed,
which I can save for next season.
Additional herbs have been seeded, including 
basil, dill, and more parsley.

I'm digging the Cylindra beets.
They are a first time crop for me,
as I've always grown the Detroit Dark Red.
These have been so easy and really needed no coddling.
I'll plan to plant more in the fall season.

These gardening gloves have impressed me.
I'm fairly hard on my gloves and these have kept right up with me,
and as you can see, they wash up very well.
They are made by Atlas.

 Our front porch garden is looking pretty good,
although there a couple of spots I'd like to fill in with something.
We've been getting lots of pollinator activity here,
as well as visits from birds, squirrels and lizards.

 I wish the camera did justice to the color of this lobelia.
Here it is paired with euphorbia and it's a dynamite duo!

 This coneflower has a guest,
can you see it on the left side of the bloom?
Coneflowers are one of my absolute favorites!

With a little less rain this week and a rise in temperatures,
it feels like summer, although the calendar says differently.
This weekend may find me at a plant swap with a friend,
so I might have something new to report next week.
Maybe I'll even find something for those bare spots in the garden.
Ya never know!

New Worm Bin

A couple of years ago,

we showed how we fashioned a homemade worm bin.

You can visit that post here.

We still have that one,

but there were a few things that made it difficult to harvest the castings,

which is the main reason we started our bin.

Mostly, the totes would get very heavy,

laden with our black treasure.

It required me to sift through the bin for worms,

so that I could gather the castings for the garden.

Doable, but not desirable.

Enter the Worm Factory.

This kit comes complete with bin, multiple trays,

coir, pumice, and even shredded newspaper.

Everything but the worms are included, as well as an instruction book

to get you started.

The pumice aids in drainage and aeration,

so that the bin stays moist, but not soppy.

 Coir, which is ground coconut fiber, 

acts a bedding material.

This is soaked in water and becomes fluffy before being added to the bins.

 (I haven't figured out yet what the scraper is for,

but it's included in the kit.)

 The instruction manual details step-by-step

how to put the wormery together,

as well as tips on how to harvest castings.

 To start the first tray (where the worms will be),

a layer of dry newspaper was placed on the bottom.

In order to prepare the bin for worms,

the coir was mixed with some potting soil, shredded paper

and pumice and added to the bottom most tray.

The soil mixture was added on top of the dry newspaper.

At this point, food scraps can be added to one corner of the tray.

I used chopped lettuce, kale and other cuttings from meal prep.

When making a salad or using greens (their favorite),

I chop them into small bits and place them in a freezer bag

until they are needed.

The worms get fed about once a week or so.

 After adding the worms, place a layer of wet newspaper on top.

This will keep the tray moist and dark, 

just the way they like it.

I used the two empty trays here to store some shredded paper

for when I'm ready to start the next layer.

Extra trays can be added, up to a total of five.

The spout is designed to keep excess moisture out of the bin,

as well as allowing you to create casting tea with the contents.

One peek into the bottom tray two weeks after starting this tray,

made me feel that I was on the right track.

The next tray will be added this week,

and the worms are supposed to migrate to the next tray up

and start the whole process over again.

There has been no trouble thus far with mess or odor,

but I think I would still rather have them outside on the back deck

(in the shade) rather than in the house.

The lid of the worm factory gives all the necessary information,

to make it easy to maintain your population.

You'll notice in the lower right-hand corner

that this wormery is made in the USA.

Another plus, in my opinion.

Overall, we are pretty happy with this simple worm bin.

It seems like it will save me both time and energy

and create castings galore.

Do you know what a group of worms is called?

(A clew.)