End of May Report

I can't believe we're not out of May and it's already hit the 70's.  Not only that but things are really starting to green up.

You can see I've added cat excluder devices to most of my beds.  I love my cats, but they like to dig and poop.

 Lettuce mix, chard, kale, and spinach.

 French breakfast radishes.  First round up and the second round just sprouted.

 Peas and carrots

 The raspberry bramble is greening up nice and I've seen some flower buds already too.

 The front beds are all cabbage.

 Since my potato boxes all have scab I decided to just use them all for zuchs and other squash.

 Beans

 More beans.

 The cuchs are in.

 Basil in a hanging pot

As well as cilantro and not picutred, thyme and mint.

Gearing up for the 2015 season

It's been awhile. But then not much has been happening on the farm.  We had a fairly mild winter by Alaska standards and so far we've had a very warm, dry spring.  It's still getting too cold at night to plant outside, but I've already got my peas in and up and starting to harden off our starts.

I've also cleaned up the greenhouse and readied all my pots, I've amended all my beds, and I think I'm just waiting for the night time temps to stay above 50 or so.

This also means clearing out the freezer, by smoking up the rest of last years fish and working my way through the rest of the put up veggies.  

Stay tuned for more fun.

Working on the farm house.

Well the crops are all in.

 Had a nice haul on the potatoes and carrots.

 Bought a dehydrator and of course had to start playing with it right away.

 But it was also time to start working on the floors and eventually the kitchen.  The wee pup is almost ready to crawl and we wanted to get rid of our nasty carpet and put in a nice wood floor.

 The one thing I'll say about my house is that when ever I think I've seen it all I find something new to shake my head at.  I think these tiles were put here to help level the floor for the carpet.  This corner is where the previous owners had a wood stove.

 Luckily most of the living room was fairly level.

 However once I got to the hallway I found more surprises. I forgot to take a before picture, but they had dug up the waterline or gasline, something and there was a big elevation difference so I decided to do a self leveler in the area.

 Over all it turned out great and made for a great surface to lay the flooring on.

 Still have to floor the babies room and in a couple weeks tear out the kitchen for new floor and cabinets as well.

Rambling and Brambling

The raspberry bramble in the yard has by far been the best and most consistant producer on the farm.  We routinely take well over 5 gallons of berries off a year and probably way more than that.  We already made a huge batch of jam with last years leftovers and some of this years crop.

 I thought it would be fun to show the progression of the summer all over the farm and lets start with our raspberries.

Early June. We had just got back from our whirlwind family visit in the lower 48 and I started to go to work on the yard. One of the first things I did was put up some fencing to help rein in our bramble. I also did quite a bit of pruning and next year I'm not only going to do a good prune, but I have a bin of compost ready to fertilize these guys.

By late June the Bramble is in full swing and made the bees very happy with all it's flowers.

By mid July new canes are starting to pop up and we are already harvesting fruit.

By mid August the new canes have come up and the bramble is getting really bushy.  Those canes should be big producers next year.

Here we are at the end of August and the weather is starting to turn cooler at night.  The fruit producing cane's leaves are starting to turn.  Still quite a few berries left in the bramble I just hope we have a little while longer to harvest.

8-30-14 Farm Update

End of the month update.  We just did a big rhubarb harvest.  Starting to get a little colder at night and looks like our season is rapidly approaching

 The raspberries have been productive again this year and the new canes look really healthy. Should mean another great year next year.

 Even with the late start the taters are looking good.

 We've had a great supply of lettuce all summer and the beats are almost ready.

 Even with only one pea fence we've gotten a great crop and the carrot tops are the largest I've ever seen in the garden.

 This yellow wax chili pepper plant has done alright in the green house and the scotch bonnet is also doing pretty good.

 Really sunny the morning I took these but the green beans have been producing like mad.  I've probably put away over 5 pounds in the freezer and we are still regularly eating them with dinner.

 Our three cherry tomatoes are doing good to and those tiny little tomatoes are oh so sweet.

 We're also finally getting a nice crop of cucumbers.  The variety this year is the Boston Pickling Cuchs and are very tasty, just not very big.  Should have enough to make a few batches of pickles.

 The yellow and green zuchs are also doing well as is some of our front yard cabbage

 A couple nice yellow Zuchs

And a few nice green ones.

Well that's it for now.

August 12th Farm Update

Been awhile since I had a good post of the farm. So lets take a walk around.

Looking in the greenhouse it's become quite a jungle.

Green beans are going really well. I've already packed away a few pounds and had many, many with dinners.

 The tomatoes have once again topped out in the green house.  We have lots of flowers and tons of small tomatoes, but we'll have to see if any ripen.

 The cucumbers have taken over their corner as well and we've been pretty diligent on pollinating.  We finally have a couple that have set.

 Got a couple pepper plants starts from a friend, I'm not sure what kind they are only I was told they are hot.  And we've already got a couple.

 Out in the beds everything is growing good.  The lettuce continues to be harvested, the beats are coming along nicely and this is our 3rd or 4th round of radishes.

 You can also congratulate Jon here. He was recently promoted to General.  General shithead and has taken that corner of the box as his own.

 The peas and carrots are both doing great.

 The peas have already topped their fence once again and even with only one pea fence this year I think we'll have plenty.

 Taters are blooming which is always a good sign.

 The bramble has really bushed up.  We've taken a couple gallons off of it already and there are tons and tons more to come.

 All the zucchini and squash plants are doing well and producing lots of fruit.

 We even had a few cabbage take and survive out front.

 There's a nice zuch there.  We've taken a lot of the smaller fruit that didn't set and have been eating them pretty constantly. Should be another good year all around for these guys.