a bumper crop of onions
sitting by the creek...
shelling fava beans.....
makes us oddly happy!
We harvested the last of the fava beans and enjoyed sitting by the creek processing them. We've been eating them on pizza and in salad and in freekeh bowls. Such an incredible springtime treat with an amazingly short season. Each season brings new treats in the garden.
tying up (or twisting up) tomato plants...
leads to an exciting (and slightly horrifying) discovery!
While training tomato plants around the string supports (which they are rapidly outgrowing), I discovered a veritable plethora of hornworms. I found five big ones in a matter of minutes this time - which made the chickens very happy! I am always amazed by these incredibly efficient creatures. They are the larval phase of hummingbird moths, also known as sphinx moths. The moths will later lay eggs which become large leathery pupae overwintering underground. We typically find a few of these while turning over our beds each year. Fortunately, the chickens like to eat that phase as well. The hornworm phase can eat more in a single day than you would imagine possible. They are superbly camouflaged but do glow at night when hit with a black light.
strawberries and tomatoes ripening
first tomatoes.... added to dinner with fresh chives
We have enjoyed our first few tomatoes of the year. A couple of incredibly tasty black prince and a handful of sun gold tomatoes. More coming soon and I cannot wait. Our new pizza oven is so much fun to use and is begging for fresh tomato margherita pizza!
newly tied up blackberries
We tied up the blackberry bushes this weekend as well. I always look like I've been in a cat fight after doing this. It is definitely a two person job! There is so much fruit on the vine. We have had a couple of delicious ripe berries and are looking forward to many more coming soon. While we lost all of our orchard fruit to a late hard freeze this spring, we are remaining optimistic for a good berry harvest to support our baking and jam making habits.
harvesting onions
It was finally time to harvest our short day onions. We turned off their irrigation a couple of weeks ago after they were all lying down. They were super easy to harvest and had already begun drying. This is our best onion harvest to date with some of the biggest onions we have ever grown. We grew Texas early white, Texas super sweet, and red Creole onions in this bed. The early whites grew the best. The master gardeners who visited us early this month were surprised to see that short day onions did so well in our region. This is just the second year we have grown short day onions. We typically do intermediate day onions but after doing some research, Jim decided to give this a try. I'd say it was a success.
short day onions, red Creole, Texas early white, and Texas super sweet
we have never had to use the wagon to move a harvest before
celebrating onion harvest and preparing to plant
With the onions gone, it was time to re-plant winter squash to replace those which did not survive. The first round did not get enough sun, was hard to see and protect, and and were largely devoured by pill bugs under cover of all the onions. We are optimistic that this round will have a better chance at survival. Happy hour presented an opportunity to plant a few Armenian cucumbers intermixed in the pole beans while enjoying a glass of wine.
happy hour planting!
Once we were done in the garden, it was time to arrange the onions on a drying rack (which is really just rolling rack shelving which we use to start our seedlings indoors in the winter). They will dry for several weeks in our hot dry garage. Once they necks are totally dry, we will trim the tops and roots and store them in our "root cellar" for later use. We still have a slightly smaller crop of intermediate day onions growing as well as garlic and shallots, the latter of which are almost ready for harvest.
we are very excited about our onions!
aren't they beautiful?
Okay, so I admit, we might be a bit too enthusiastic about our onions but it was pretty exciting to harvest such a gorgeous crop. We are just now eating the last of last year's onions so we will have months of enjoyment out of these and our next crop.
Meanwhile, this weekend, after many delays, we received our raised beds. We designed and ordered seven raised beds over two years ago. When COVID hit, the ensuing supply chain issues and later inflation caused many delays and changes in availability of product. While we ended up building two ourselves to accommodate our vegetable garden plans for 2021, we were able to wait for the delivery of the five decorative beds for the side yard. Fortunately, Steve and Cheryl of Sliding C Wood Creations were patient (mostly) and persevered. It was a group effort to get these installed with Jim and I assisting but Steve and Cheryl made them look fabulous and did all the finish work. We LOVE the finished product! Thanks guys! Next weekend we'll fill these with soil and plant one side with lavender.
Steve and Cheryl de Golyer installing the custom built raised beds
The installed raised beds ready for use
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