Niemela's Market Gardens: Some pictures......

Whew, been a while! This summer has been goofy, weather wise. Toward the end of May, we were kicking up dust as we worked in the field. Then, it started raining the end of May, and been regular rains since. A couple areas of our plots actually got a little too wet, rather like a spring wetness, except once it's planted, you can't really get in there and work the soil to extensively to let it dry out a bit. But, all in all, things are going great here. :) In the main tomato greenhouse, there's lots of fruit set, and a few starting to turn.

We've kept busy working on keeping back weeds, and lots of succession planting for fall crops. The winter carrots have been planted, and germinated well, in spite (or perhaps partly due to) the torrential rain we had a night or two after planting. They are a bit diminutive in size yet, but by October or November, they should be ready for harvest, and our customers can enjoy sweet, crunchy fresh-dug carrots all winter long again!

Little baby carrots, just coming out of the ground.

I see a couple little weeds in the carrot picture as well. Gotta get out there with the collinear hoe and take care of that project.

Here's a shot across the winter carrot plot, it goes along and over the little rise, plus a couple shorter beds at the end of one of the greenhouses. I am planning to do a couple more small plantings, to see how late I can seed and still get a good crop. We usually seed them in about July 7, then you need to faithfully water them until they germinate. (If the soil crusts or dries out, not good for them when they are just sprouting.)

Ya, those are kid tracks cruising down the beds. I think Anthony invited Molly to go for a stroll down the carrot beds. Not particularly helpful, but, no real harm done, either. If there's a couple crooked carrots in the stomp marks, they'll go fine in the stew pot here. I did admonish them to walk in the paths, however, not down the beds. They say a kid's attention span is as long as their age in seconds. But, hopefully they paid attention when I was talking, and will stay off the beds. :)

The fruiting crops are sure liking the bursts of heat we've been having- more and more cukes and zucchini have been coming off. The picture directly above is a new kind of cucumber we are trying this year- Picklebush. It's supposed to be a bit more compact, so hopefully it will set lots of cukes, but won't be a bother with long vines parading all over creation. And, I've been pumped to see pollinators appearing as well. We have a small patch of cilantro and Italian Parsley that over-wintered in one of the greenhouses last winter. Figured, shucks, they've made it through a winter, might as well save seed off those ones, and breed up some seed from those that have winter survival genetics. :) The bees, some critters that look like flies, and all sorts of pollinators are sure lovin' the parsley. Cilantro has finished flowering, and will start to mature as time goes on.

Not sure what this is........

Nor this, but if you know, feel free to chime in. :)

Here's a picture of a new interesting thing we tried- called walking onions, or tree onions. Someone gave one of the vendors at the Tori some bulbs to share around. Really interesting. They are apparently a perennial onion, and set little bulbs at the top of their stalk. These little bulbs can be used in pickling or whatnot. Or, they can be re-planted to get more onions. Or, they can be left alone, and in the fall, the stalks tip over, and the little bulbs root in where they fall (a foot or so away from the mother plant), hence they are called "walking onions". Kind of neat and odd looking.

We tried growing some white turnips under row cover, ans another planting of radish. Hopefully the row cover will keep the infernal root maggot flies off the turnips. It's disgusting, even in the planting late last fall, the root maggots wouldn't leave them alone. Pull up a nice looking turnip, and it's full of root maggot tunneling, a pox on the nasty critters!! The row cover has surely helped keep flea beetles from chewing the daylights out of the leaves; hopefully, it has also kept the little gray root maggot flies off as well.


Under protection from root maggots and flea beetles, not frost!

And the carrots are getting DANGEROUSLY close- here's the "cracking of the row", as I call it; a surefire way of knowing the little roots are swelling up nicely.

Cracking of the row......


Brussels sprouts are really taking off now.....

We'll let them grow until early September, then "top" them (cut out the growing point). That will force them to set lots of nice firm brussels sprouts for our fall/winter sales. They sure were popular last fall, so we planted a load more this year. :)

How we "stake" peas in the home garden.......

We let peas crawl up dead evergreen limbs (the spruce seems to be the best shape for this). Then, when gardening is done, we can just pitch them onto a bonfire or use them as kindling, or some such. No fuss, no muss, and the peas love it. These are a shelling type pea in the home garden; we tried planting edible-pod snap type for market twice, but they rotted out both times (ROT 'EM!). So, no snap peas this year, not gonna try the third time. But my lovely and gracious Janice will have plenty of shelling types for winter stir-fry and other toothsome delicacies. :)

Comfrey as a "catch" crop....

Tried something new by the composting bins- we planted comfrey by them. Comfrey is a rapidly growing, deeply rooting plant. You can cut and compost the leaves; and my thinking was that if/when nutrients leach into the ground from the compost, perhaps the comfrey will catch some of them, and I can cut it, compost it, and get a second shot at it. Makes sense to me anyway, and it looks nice as well. :)

Brown gold, in one of the compost bins......

Amazing- the pond was still overflowing in mid-July......

And here's a couple shots of roses- they are so beautiful, fragrant, and serene looking. Lots of the old-time roses have such a strong sweet smell to them, that seems to have been lost on some of the newer types.

In non-farm news, my youngest sister got married last month, end of June. 'Twas a big time- like all functions that Janice, mom, my sisters, and sisters-in-law are involved with, the food is so good, you could HURT YOURSELF eating, as the saying goes. :) But we had a grand time, got them all married off proper, and gave them a good send-off with horns honking and a trail of vehicles following them out of downtown Chassell. :)

Last little item, before I bid you all adieu, is baby rabbits. The mamma is a beautiful Flemish Giant, white and black flecked. The babies are a riot of different colors- some dark (which will take after the daddy), some pink and dark spotted (which will take after mamma). But they are all so cute, and she took good care of them.