in and around the garden

everything is so green out there these days.  and with many of the flowers at their peak it is easy to pull together a sweet bouquet from the backyard in a few minutes, something I so love to do. we pulled the garlic earlier this week and are readying that row for a second planting of carrots and beets and another planting of greens.  we realized happily that garlic is now on our (rather short) list of things that we are able to produce enough ourselves to see us through a whole year.  that list also includes honey (which of course is actually produced by the bees, but still... even with losing our hives this winter we have plenty to get us through until next year), maple syrup, and jam.  hoping very much to add more produce to the list, eventually.

we are also pulling and fermenting carrots and we've started to harvest and pickle the cucumbers.  we had our first bean harvest the other day (a small one, about half a pound) and I hope to soon be cranking out some dilly beans because this mama has been known to eat through the whole stash by mid fall, often consuming an entire jar in a day.  yum.  I'm freezing greens and watching the baby butternuts, waiting to pull onions and spying tiny pumpkins.  I had to pull all but one of my zucchini plants, they just looked so sad and pitiful.  I'm thinking summer squash won't be too hard to come by though, so hopefully I'll be able to make plenty of the curried zucchini pickles I fell in love with last summer.

the hot peppers and tomatoes are looking pretty good (though some of the tomatoes are getting blossom end rot already and some are looking a bit wilty at times- hoping to remedy that by adding some calcium), the cabbage is getting closer to ready, and it looks to be about pesto-making time.  Mike covered the blueberries with netting after watching robins hop up from the ground to eat unripe berries, and I am keeping an eye on the elderberries to see if I'll need to do the same for them.  I just recently seeded some bush beans and okra and edamame and a couple hills with more zucchini, and am wondering how they will all do.  the chickens are doing alright, though we lost one a few nights ago to a mystery predator.  rest in peace, sweet Buttercup.

all in all, it's looking pretty good out there.  I tried to take photos from several angles to give a somewhat clear view of how it all looks back there.  our entire lot is just shy of a third of an acre, so I'm guessing the entire back yard is about 1/10 of an acre, at most.  there is a stretch between the back door and fire pit/chicken yard area that we have promised Claire would be left as grass.  gotta have a least a little room to play ball and frolic, right?

cheers from our garden!