It’s been a lot longer than I anticipated (or intended) for a garden update.

Everything has been growing quite well. It’s been an exceedingly wet “summer” this year. So far I’ve only watered the garden once, and even then I didn’t water the corn or tomatoes.

Fresh (Mesclun Mix) Salad Greens

The first harvest came June 20th, with this picking of greens. This is the first time we’ve grown these so it’s been a learning experience.

One of the earlier lettuce beds

This is one of the early beds of greens. It’s amazing how quickly the grass and weeds grow in there as well.

First Cherry Tomatoes & the 50th pound of salad greens

August 3rd I got the first cherry tomatoes. We grew Sweet Million red cherry tomatoes and a couple of types of yellow cherry tomatoes. Susan really likes using the little tomatoes for garnish at the Cafe. I’m quite pleased with the results from the greens. Although we learned that the non-lettuce part of the greens needs to be harvested quite young. They transition to “tough & bitter” remarkably quickly, but when young are my favourite.

Tomato Plant Jungle August 2009

By early August the tomato plants were growing gangbusters. Next year I’ll have to plant them even further apart!

Sweet Million cherry tomatoes living up to their name

Two weeks later and the Sweet Million tomatoes are in their splendor. Every time I go to harvest I eat a handful or two, reminds you of how tasty a tomato can, and is supposed to, be. Makes me mad at the tasteless, watery things that are passed off as tomatoes in stores all too often.

Bountiful Harvest from August 20th

By August 20th the big tomatoes are ripening and we’re getting great harvests such as this one. The Roma tomatoes have been a big hit in frittata’s, seasoned with fresh herbs. I grew Ultra Girl & Brandywine (I think it is) for the bigger tomatoes. I need to find out what type of cucumbers I put in, as they’re very good.

Brussel Sprouts, Eggplant, Pansies, Garlic (L-R)

One of our more unusual “crops” are pansies. The flowers are edible so we’re using them for garnish on salads at the Cafe. The garlic is a co-op with a friend of ours who had extra bulbs but no more space.

A picking of Pansy Flowers used as edible Garnish

I’ll try to get a better picture next time, but here’s today’s harvest of pansy flowers.

11 pounds of green beans

Yesterday I did a picking of all the beans. Interestingly, the first beans we had came from “volunteer” plants that grew from beans that fell on the ground from last year. Next year I’m going to plant beans much earlier. 10 pounds of these went into the freezer. The remainder were part of another of our “100 meter diet” suppers where all the food came straight from the farm: beans, sweet corn,  salad greens, cherry tomatoes and a T-bone steak. We were commenting that since we moved to the farm we’re eating better than we ever have (even from back in the tech “boom” when we had money ;-). Life is good.