Every Color of the Rainbow

Every color of the rainbow is ripe in the garden right now! We are busy picking, chopping, slicing, brining, stewing, canning, preserving the harvest! What is happening your kitchen now?

In the Garden Now

Zinnias with a wonderful pollinator attract beneficial insects to the garden.

Peaches the size of our hands!!

The peach tree is bulging and bursting and needs help holding her branches up so boards are used to support the weight of the fruit on the tree.

The first Irish Eyes sunflower to bloom.

Many more Irish Eyes are ready to bloom. Their buds seem to twinkle as much as Irish Eyes!

Oh, the broccoli is super sweet this year.

Dill, zinnias, onions, yellow wax beans, zucchini, yellow crookneck squash, cabbage...

Our small crop of corn with wind damage. Blood Red Corn and Smoke Signals Corn shades the chicken coop from the late day sunshine along with the sunflowers.

Bursting and budding and blooming and producing. We are now picking daily in the garden!
How does your garden grow?

Stringing Up Pole Beans

We planted two types of pole beans this year: Runner Cannellini Beans and Hidatsa Shield Beans. Both beans can be eaten green and both beans are great for drying for soups, stews, baked beans, and bean salads! The Cannellini had its origins in Argentina, then made its way to Italy before coming to America. It is full of body and a nutty flavor that is perfect for making soups. The Hidatsa Shield Bean came from North America in the Dakotas. It is one of the three sisters planted with corn and squash by Native Americans. Both beans can grow as tall as 12 feet high. We are hoping our 10 foot posts will support their climbing habits ad they will still produce plenty for eating fresh and for drying.

We need a ladder to work with the ten foot posts! Balancing a post driver on the end of the tall green posts should be a requirement for any circus act! The post driver is made of solid steel and weighs 20 pounds. Tim pounded the posts into the ground until the foot was below the surface of the soil. Each post is made of steel and very strong. 

Nearing the end of the bean row, and finished pounding in the posts. We sure like the ladder that can adjust in all different sizes and shapes. It can be used straight up and down or it can be used bent in half. Just make sure each pin is properly placed before using the ladder.  Once the posts were all driving into the ground, it was time to put the cross bars up.

We used 2" x 2" x 8' wooden bars and tied them to the top of the T post with twine. They are surprisingly sturdy. Each cross bar was mounted and secured, a cross run of twine was tied to each T post at the bottom of the post.  Then it was time to begin lacing line for the beans to climb.   

We laced 15 lines over and under in each section. Over the top wooden bar, under the twine at the bottom.  Just as we were finishing the last section,  we ran out of twine.  At this point, we were going to have to finish the nearly completed project in the morning. While adjusting the lines of twine, the bottom cross line snapped!  There goes all of the work.  It wasn't lost,though   

The wind picked up and tossed the unsecured twine lines in an effort to remind us we are not in charge! 

Finally, the next day we were able to finish the twine runners.  The beans were more than ready to start climbing the twines. Now they seem to be growing and climbing before our eyes! It sure makes picking easier, too! How do you support your pole beans?

May Day

Happy May Day and a month full of flowers and fragrance!

Pear Blossoms

How pretty the perfectly formed pear blossoms! They reveal themselves now and at the end of the summer, when the ripe and juicy sweet fruit is cut in half, the beautifully bursting little star will shine again!

Spring is Sneaking In

This was the end of the snow and Ryan, Anna, and Tyler helped slush it up to melt faster! There is still snow in the mountains all around the valley and even down to lower elevations, but here on the valley floor at about 1,000 feet above see level, we are snow free. The windy, blustery change of season weather is turning our minds to the farming that we want to do and will do soon.

Here are some onion starts we picked up at a small nursery near town. These are yellow Spanish onions. They sold the starts for $3.00 per pound. There are 150 starter pearls here. If each little start turns into a larger spheric spicy treat, then our onions will cost approximately .02 cents per onion. Of course that doesn't include the weeding and the watering! Anyway, it is cheaper than purchasing a single organic onion at the store for .93 cents a piece.


Now with all of the rain, we checked the budding on the fig trees that were planted last year. We lost one tree to the weather or the moon phase or the soil or the little ground squirrels that like to chew off tasty roots. So in the rain, which is good luck, we planted a fig tree.


We hope the "Oregon Prolific Fig" will like its new home in the pasture. It was perfect planting weather with plenty of pouring rain to settle the new fig start into the soil!
~That was our week end, we hope springtime is sneaking up on you too!

In the Garden

Tim has worked wonders this summer with our water situation! He is the water magician! Every little drop of water counts and although it appears to be a luxury to have the hose running freely, it is just a mirage!


The water that we are so grateful to have access to, came with a high pressure price. Most of our (new)soaker hoses blew out from too much pressure. This will be rectified this fall, but in the meantime, we make do with what we have to use: a good old fashioned hose!


Every color of the rainbow was found in the garden. Today was a mini harvest and the goodies will be used in garden sauce, pickles, fresh eating and sharing. The basil keeps better by just pulling it our roots and all, tucking into a fresh jar of water in the kitchen, and using the leaves as needed for sauces, pizza, and pesto.


You can see by the photos that there is a great deal of smoke in the air. There is a wildfire burning along the Illinois River called the Oak Flat Fire. Crews are hoping to contain the fire within a week. It is a tough job with the steep terrain of the rugged Southern Oregon Mountains. The sunflowers seem to glow in the smokey haze...where there is smoke, there's beauty!