Some Garden Pics to Share

HI!!!! It's nice to "see" everybody again!!! *grin* Mom called this morning to see if I was still alive. I guess it's been so long since I've posted (ok. I know it has!) that she was worried about us. Really, we're ok!!! Just busy.

We had soccer all 5 week-nights last week. We won the first 3 games, lost the last two. However, the loss-margins on the last two games were tiny compared to how massively we've lost to those two teams in the past. Out of 8 teams in our age-level, we took 3rd place. *grin* Yeah. We're pretty thrilled with that!

A couple of our girls were playing (insisted on it!) injured, as well. Tay has had a problem with one of her ankles twisting, but insisted that it wasn't hurting enough to make her sit out of the games. So we were rubbing her down with IcyHot and then taping her ankle up each night. She also said that now that the tournament is over, it's not hurting at all. Another of the little girls (our team "star") was playing with shin-splints. *shaking head* I worry about these kids doing permanent damage to themselves with their insistance on playing, but Lindsey's Dad said that if Lindsey felt up to playing, he was leaving the decision in her hands. Scott and I DID tell her that we felt the game was all in fun, though, and if she was hurting then she needed to sit out rather than do major damage to herself. She and Tay both had the point made to them quite strongly that NO tournament is worth doing damage to their bodies, at 10 years old. Again, though, they both were adamant that the pain was minor and they didn't want to quit playing. *shrug*


Anyway, these are some pics from the garden over at the FIL's house. The top is a close-up of one green tomato in the greenhouse. I hope these tomatoes ripen!!! At this point, except for the couple of tomatoes here at my house, we don't know what kind most of these tomatoes are. So, they've got to ripen for us to find out. *grin* Anyway, more green tomatoes and tomato blossoms in the next couple of pics.



Here area couple of pics of the masses of plants inside the greenhouse. Mostly tomatoes with a few (non-productive so far) pepper plants, a couple eggplants (also non-productive) and some melon plants (both watermelon and regular melon, AGAIN with the non-productive yet).
A picture of one HUGE pickling cucumber we got!!! Tay was insistent that this one be cut up and eatten. The skin was TERRIBLY bitter. It was about 10 inches long and several inches around.
















Here are two rows of beans. So far they haven't even had flowers on them. I think it's been too overcast and rainy for them to flower. However, mine here at home had flowers this morning. The first flowers I've seen on them this year. Maybe we might get beans yet!







This, I think, is a row of radishes. Not quite sure though. Most of these pics were taken a couple of weeks ago.

That next pic, I think, is a couple tomato plants we decided to set right into the ground to see how they do. They're not producing a darned thing. *sigh*


Some swiss chard, here. And some baby spinach down at the end of the other row, I belive.







Here is a pic of the ONLY head of broccoli we actually got this year. The rabbits helped themselves to the plants so much earlier on in the season, that this is the only plant that actually produced a main head of broccoli. *sigh* The other plants sometimes had smaller side-heads on them. But, nothing bigger than a florette or two.


Here are some of the squash plants. The squash at the inlaws place aren't producing a darned thing. Again, it's been too rainy and overcast I believe. And what blossoms there are, aren't pollenated by the bees, because the bees have been hiding from the rain as well. Even my zukes here at home have had to be hand pollinated in order to produce the couple of zukes I've got growing. (YES, I DID "feel up" the stamens on my zuke blossoms in order to get them to produce SOMETHING!!! *grin*)






Here is a picture of beets and cabbage. Our cabbage could have taken second place in this year's fair, if we'd decided to enter it. I'm not kidding. The LARGEST cabbage entered was only about 34 pounds. The next largest was about 21. My FIL guestimates that OUR largest cabbage probably weighs about 25 to 27 pounds. Anyway, some of these are also ready to be harvested. We just need to find a way to preserve them. I'm voting for sauerkraut or kimchi. (Canned!) My FIL is insistant that this stuff cannot be canned, and yet I argue that we're able to buy it canned at the grocery store, why not make some at home?!?!? (Esp. as Scott, Tay and I eat a LOT of sauerkraut and kimchi.) I'm also wondering how well fried kielbasa and cabbage would can. Pressure canned, of course. Not that I've ever USED the pressure canner Dad gave me. Not by myself anyway. I'm kinda nervous about that, really.



Anyway, pics of our carrots and our beets. The carrots got partially harvested on Sunday. We pulled approximately 2 dozen good sized carrots. About half were almost as big as what you'd get at the grocery store. Some were a little skinnier, and a couple were nice fat stubby little things. *grin* But, we've got about 2 dozen more that we left in the ground for later harvesting. We want to let them get a bit bigger before we pull them. All in all, though, we're happy already with what we got. We've never managed more than 2 or 3 edible sized carrots before, to get 2 dozen in the first go this year?!?!? Incredible!



This is a pic of the peas. Some flowers are visible, and there are pods on some of the plants. But even these aren't producing the way they usually do. I also think that the FIL is planning on letting all the pods develop actually peas inside, where as I was rooting for picking and freezing some pods by themselves for stir-fries this winter.


This looks likea close-up of a flower on a bean plant. Wait!!!! I didn't think I'd seen any flowers on the bean plants?!?!?! Evidently I was wrong. *wry smile* I wonder if it got pollenated???








Here are some pics of our cucumber plants, all spread out upon the pallets in FIL's back yard. We've gotten 6 pints of pickles so far. (FIL had to re-can 3 of them, combining a 4th can that was partially filled among the other 3.) On Sunday we picked about that many more cucumbers for about that many more cans of pickles, but have yet to get them pickled. (We were planning on doing it on Sunday night, along with pickling the carrots and beets we picked that day, but ran out of time.) So, we may have a small supply of pickles for this year's eatting, but not as much as I was hoping.


Here is a close-up of a squash plant. My FIL is very disappointed that it doesn't appear he's going to get any hubbards or acorns this year. That was one thing HE was really wanting from the garden this year. The plants themselves are good sized, but no blossoms have yet opened on them, much less any veggie production taking place.

















Next, a pic of the potato plants at the inlaws. Aren't they huge?!?!? I hope we get a good number of potatoes from them this fall. I haven't yet seen any flowers on them, though the plants are very tall. (Tori, they're over 2 feet tall, each plant, and very bushy!)







Now onto my turnip harvest last week!!! I got 18 good-sized turnips. Here they are, spread across the table on the deck. I wanted y'all to see how lovely they are, with their greens up top. And this is less than HALF the turnips in that bed. I've got another 22 yet to harvest. I left that 22 in to grow a bit larger, and I think they'll be ready to pick this coming weekend.














Here is the largest of my turnips. It was actually larger than my fist by a good bit. I show it here along side one of my gardening gloves to give y'all some idea of how big it truly is.

















Next, a picture of one of my turnips all by itself. The first one out of my planter bed. Look at that lovely purple color!!!! Unfortunately the turnips were also riddled with worm-holes that had to be cut out and around before I could finish processing them. I ended up slicing the turnips into 1/4 inch (or smaller!) slices and dehydrating them. I wound up with 6 full racks in the dehydrator turning into less than 2/3 of a full (reused! spaghetti-sauce jar) of dehydrated turnip slices. That's ok. I'm going to toss them by the tablespoon-ful into soups and stews this winter, and I know that they'll rehydrate in the liquid. This way they take up less space than they would if frozen in baggies.













I really hope y'all can see the colors on this swiss chard. I don't know that I've actually got 5 different colors in it, though the variety is "5 color silver-beet", but what lovely colors we did get.








And THIS particular example is lovely with the "peppermint" striping down the length of the stalk. Kinda reminded me of peppermint salt-water taffy. *grin* Tasted a heck of a lot healthier, though. *wink*











And last but not least, a picture of my planter bed BEFORE I pulled any turnips or cut any swiss chard. *grin* Unfortunately I dont' think I'm going to get any beets out of mine this year. *sigh* The turnips, come to find out, were blocking the beets from getting any sun. Next year, beets go to the left of the turnips so they're not overshadowed by the turnip greens. Although actually I hope to be planting in a different bed just to the left and behind this one. Since this one had worms in it this year, I need to plant them in a different bed next year, so the worms don't have more & more chance to eat turnips every year. *wry smile* Hmmmm... Maybe carrots in this bed next year???







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Still no word as to an interview for the North Pole Branch position. I was really expecting to hear something by this point this morning, but I haven't yet gotten a call.

Tomorrow, Scott and I are going to the orientation for Tay's homeschool program. We wound up registering with the Raven program, which is based in Fairbanks and services primarily students from the Yukon/Koyukuk river basin.

Thursday morning (at 8 am!), we have our court appearance as witnesses against the woman who plowed into the neighbour's truck. That ought to be interesting.

Ok. That's it for this morning. I've gotta get a move on so that I can get Dad's mail sent off to him.

Have a Blessed Day!