So far we've gotten a couple gorgeous bell peppers, lots of radishes, lettuce, yellow summer squash and zucchini.
The tomato plants are HUGE and covered in green tomatoes. The bell pepper plants have 3 or 4 peppers each. The green beans have little green beans and the corn plants have little ears growing! The cucumber and watermelon vines are trying to take over. The various squash are of course flourishing. Carrots seem to be doing well, but aside from admiring their nice green tops it's hard to tell. Potato plants are up and growing well and the onions are getting very tall. It's too hot already for things sensitive to the heat. I didn't get an early spring garden in because of the stupid pig on the loose. Will grow a bunch of cool weather stuff this fall. I grumble about the Texas heat, but I'm already appreciating our long growing season in a whole new way now that I'm avidly gardening.
Soren loves stomping through the garden, it's like a jungle from his perspective. Here he is in front of the tomato plants. This was taken about a week ago, believe it or not the plants are even bigger now. How big can a tomato plant get??
I'm getting ready to can/freeze anything extra the garden produces. This year is a bit of a test run. Hopefully next year I'll have the kinks worked out and will know how much of various veggies to plant to provide enough for the growing season and food storage the rest of the year. We're growing 100% organically from the seed up. I really like the idea of knowing just how the veggies my kids are eating were grown!
3 comments:
Hi Ya Elizabeth,
Wow! You’re doing good things on your little farm. The chicken tractor looks first rate. Good job!
So, how are the chickens doing? I imagine your cats do eye-ball the chicks… but hopefully you’re keeping all the critters separate. Oh my gosh, keep the grandkitzels (and you and Kendal too) clear of the chicken poop. You wouldn’t believe the micro-organisms that are in chicken poop! One interesting aspect of taking a microbiology and immunology class is how much we learn all about those nasty little microbes.
I really liked the photo of you, Elizabeth. Karen said there is no doubt you’re my “little Viking” daughter… and then we saw the photo of Odin holding up the potatoes… goodness, he looks just like you Elizabeth. Amazingly similar facial characteristics. That was great to see. I remember all those times I’d take you and your siblings out shopping and people would look at us and say to me, “Yep they’re definitely all your kids.” I really liked that since I wanted each of you in my life, always have and always will. You’re doing really good Elizabeth and I am so proud of you.
Love you! Dad
Hi Elizabeth,
If you have discovered the secret to weeds and veggies growing together in harmony… please share! I had a few things turn out okay, but my garden really petered out on me. Oh, you’re actually supposed to water it and stuff? Opps. Seriously, I’ve never been good at gardening.
Maybe it skips a generation. You would be lucky indeed if you inherited gardening skill and luck straight from your Grandpa Anderson. He is such a farmer and I swear, he could toss 10-year old dead seed on broken glass, and it would be a bumper crop of the tastiest veggies ever. He turned that nasty old Texas caleche dirt into rich, black soil, and provides incredibly good veggies to half the neighborhood each year. I’m still waiting for the old man to slow down!
Karen and I really enjoyed the photos of the delicious looking veggies. Although Karen is delightfully Lebanese in her cooking (praise Allah – opps, I mean God, I eat like a king), she is big on lots and lots of veggies in our meals. So, yes, we’re with you and your garden all the way. Good on you Elizabeth.
The photo of Soren in the garden is priceless. That cute little smile and that stout “all Anderson” Scandinavian body just made Karen and me giggle in appreciation for yet another blond, blue-eyed lover / warrior coming up into the world.
I learned in my recent Organic Chemistry class that a Scandinavian biochemist by the name of Søren Sørensen, created the way we express acidity / alkalinity today. It is the negative logarithm of hydrogen ion concentration, "pondus hydrogenii" (translated as potential hydrogen), or as we know it, the pH scale. Perhaps you could work me into some of their home schooling classes… I look forward to the day I can sit with little Soren and his siblings and share some of this science with them.
Organic Chemistry in particular explains why and how things grow, how they take moisture and nutrients from their environment, what sun light does to them, how they rid themselves of waste… all on a molecular level, as atoms moving, combining, reacting and repelling. It is an absolutely fascinating universe that is largely invisible to us.
Love,
Dad
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happy after reading your blog....
poultry
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