Garden Bling

SouleMama has a segment on her blog this time of year showing their garden week by week.  I try to capture ours at a few points during the season to show its growth, but I thought this year, I might try to take you on a tour every couple of weeks.  Our garden has a dedicated 1/3 acre section that we have filled with 19 raised beds.  We have room yet for growth, and this year added the hugelkultur.

At the top of the garden closest to the house are two beds, the one on the right we rotate and this year has some early season fennel, beets, and carrots.  To the left is a permanent bed that has our lavender, I harvested the first batch today for drying.

Then we have room for either two more beds or a patio before reaching the bulk of the garden.  The first row has two beds, one that we cover as a mini hoop house in the early spring, has cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower in it.  Behind it in the row is the new hugelkultur which we will plant next year.

The next row over begins with our potato bed.  We have found a great way to plant potatoes is just to lay them on the top of the bed, cover lightly with straw, and then as they grow continue to bury them. When it comes time for harvest, they are all nestled in the loose straw and come out fairly clean.  The next bed in the row has green onions, horseradish, and our giant rhubarb plant.  The third row down is planted to kale, kohlrabi and lettuces.

In the next row over we have the garlic that we planted last fall that we are enjoying scapes from right now.  Then the row behind it is full of peppers and eggplant.  The third row, which we have lined the center of to prevent weed growth has sugar snap peas growing on little trellis'.

As we move to the next row, you can see where we ran out of landscape fabric last weekend when we were rocking in all of the paths.  This first bed has summer squash to the left and cucumbers to the right, the cucumbers will soon be large enough to trellis.  The next two beds in this row have been rotated off this year.  We may put a fall succession planting in one of them to be determined.

In our next section, the first bed is rotated off this season, while the second bed is planted to yard long green beans (our first attempt at this, but should be a hit when we distribute them in farm bags).  The third bed has green beans along the back, and winter squashe in the front so they can vine out towards an open area of the garden space before the compost pile.

The final row has two beds in it and both are planted to tomatoes.  We have a couple of slicers and cherry tomatoes, but we plant most of the crop to paste tomatoes for canning.

Along the back boarder of the garden is a full row of red currants, just beginning to get a little blush on them.  We have a whole area by the barn that has raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, gooseberries and elderberries.

Finally we have the compost pile.  It never ceases to amaze how quickly the compost breaks down and is ready to use.  We have had such a cool summer thus far that we are running right about two weeks behind last year's progress.  I am interested to see how this garden season unfolds.

Lavender Cashew Brittle

This morning we did our first harvest of lavender, and let me tell you we did not even make a dent in what is beginning to bloom.  I have been researching new ways to use lavender and am excited to start experimenting.  I prepared the typical bundles for drying, but this time instead of hiding them in the basement, I have hung them in our dark hall closet with all of our coats.  I figured that we might as well enjoy it as it dries out.

To find some inspiration, I have been sifting through recipes that utilize lavender.  Then some perfect timing.  As I paged through my new Martha Stewart magazine, there was a piece on a lavender farmer.  One of the photos was of lavender brittle, but there was no recipe.  So I started to search for one.  It was hard to find a specific one, only hints at adding herbs to your favorite brittle recipe. At a recent meeting I had a wonderful cashew brittle and got the recipe, so I decided to try it while adding a good amount of fresh flowers.

It turned out beautifully and may make an appearance in one of our farm bags soon!  Without further ado...

Lavender Cashew Brittle

1 C butter
1 C sugar
1 C corn syrup
1 C salted Cashews
2 tsp. lavender flowers, minced

Bring butter, sugar and corn syrup to a boil and maintain boil while stirring until it reaches 295 degrees (hard crack).  Skip the morning work out the day you make brittle, your arms will be moving constantly for quite a while here!  Then remove from heat, stir in cashews and lavender and quickly transfer to a parchment lined cookie sheet (I use a jelly pan, because I like that little lip all of the way around).  You have to work VERY quickly here to get it to spread out.  It begins to set the moment it hits the cookie sheet!  Mine was completely cool within 15 minutes and I broke it into pieces.  

Farm Frenzy

This weekend was all about plants and animals around the homestead.  The garden is thriving in our warm and muggy weather and the bees are pollinating like crazy.  I love walking through the garden and knowing that the bees doing their business are ours (or very likely so).  Even though the mosquitoes seem to be getting thicker by the hour we can not resist spending our time outdoors.

Our new little barn kitten Hickory (Cory for short) is adjusting wonderfully to her large kennel safe haven on the porch.  We named her after grandpa hickory out in the wooded area where we found her.  She is socializing beautifully and full of energy.  She is getting lots of love and play time and slowly exploring while always going back to home base to rest or if she gets spooked.  I am also happy to report she has litter box duties down pat!

We were so glad that we enticed her out when we did because Saturday night mama raccoon ushered all four of her kits out of the tree and scurried them off into the woods.  It seemed a little early for them to be out, but then fifteen or twenty minutes later Sid and I heard a large crash and the porch jumped.   A large branch from the hammock tree (where the raccoons had taken up residence) had just come down out of the blue.  I think maybe mama sensed pending danger and evacuated the household.  We have not seen her or the kits since.

Since both of the hives swarmed at the beginning of the summer, we have given them a little time to make a new queen.  After inspecting the hives on Friday, to our disappointment, neither hive had any new brood, so we knew that we had to get them new queens or give up on them.  We hate to give up on anything so we drove about an hour South yesterday to visit a gentlemen who has been beekeeping since the early 1970's and breeds queens.  After a tour of his hives and some advice, we left with two lovely queens who seemed to be immediately welcomed into their new homes.  Not thirty seconds after introducing the queen box to one of the hives, there were bees feeding her!

This is the time of year to buy herb plants because the season is in full swing and the garden centers are already trying to make room for fall mums.  That means that everything is on clearance and perfect when you are wanting to buy any volume of them.  We planted 18 lavender plants in one of the large raised garden beds.  I wanted a permanent place for a big stand of gorgeous purple and I recently found out that lavender is a great deer repellant.  Though I love that we have mama and fawn living in the back of the property, they have begun to take a bit of a toll on parts of the garden, so we will see if this acts as a gentle deterrent.

The homestead is just alive with plants and animals (us included) and they all have a symbiotic relationship; ebbing and flowing with one another in a controlled sort of farm frenzy.

If you want to see all of the homestead happenings over the weekend check this out.

Silent Sunday ~ Lavender

Thankful Thursday

Today I am thankful:

:: for warm summer days full of activity

::  large fragrant bunches of lavender

::  for learning something new each day

::  my little girl, snuggled up, fast asleep on a lazy summer day post slumber party

:: my little man, sitting on the porch taking apart the spent fireworks to figure it all out

What are you thankful for this week?  If you don't blog, leave your thoughts as a reply here or a comment on my facebook wall.  Thanks to Miss Buckle for this weekly post!