First red tomato!!!

I ate my first red cherry tomato! It was so beautiful and delicious. Unfortunately it ended up in my mouth before I could get a picture of it. Just going to have to take my word!

My Bad?

O.K. I haven't posted in a while. I've been so freakin crazy I can't think straight. The garden is doing good, but I feel bad talking about it without photos to back it up. But the latest is this. I have 5 tomato plants produce beaucoup tomatoes, green peppers are finally fruiting, blackberries growing, cucumbers flowering like crazy, but no fruit. What else? Oh yeah, peas are the best I've ever had. We can pick a couple handfuls each day. Lettuce suck this year, definately going with a more traditional variety this fall. I had one bloom on my eggplants, but nothing since. I've got volunteer blackberry shoots everywhere, but that's O.K., they are thornless. The newest raspberry transplants are suffering, and one got broken, probably from the newest puppy.

The coolest things is that I've made the decision to go with the chickens, and it is going to be super simple with what we have. We already have the walls (fence and garage wall), all we need is the roof, nest boxes, and perches. And then I'm going to build a frame with chicken wire and a door, so that they can eat in the lawn once and a while, outside of the coop. It's going to be great. Now I just have to ask the neighbor if they want to go in on it. I want to go with a small breed, maybe sexlings (that's what a coworker called them). They are a small black breed. Trouble is they like to roam, and I want a breed that will be happy in a somewhat confined space. The space will be about 3 feet by 20 feet.

Can't wait - I can already taste the first fresh eggs!

Back From The Desert

New Mexico was beautiful, but it is nice to back where there is water. Well O.K. it is irrigation water taken from the Yakima river... I gotta work on that - next year!

Did I miss some incredible event in Yakima or something? I've only been gone a week - and my veggies have been doing incredible things! I have peas (I don't remember ever seeing flowers!), peppers, tomatoes (still green), zucchini, lettuce, blackberries (also green), and cucumber and eggplant flowers. It's so exciting!

I have to admit I got suspicious and called my dad accusing him of Miracle Growing my garden while I was gone. He swears he didn't! I'm still not sure...

Deligation?

Well I'm off today for Albuquerque for work and pleasure related activities. I'll be gone for 8 days! My husband and kids will join me on Thursday, so we have lots of relatives/friends watching the house, pets, garden, etc. I'm a little nervous about the state of my garden on my return!!! It could be either wonderful (veggies much bigger, lots of bowls of lettuce to eat) or disastrous (1/2 plants dead from no water and the other half sickly and taking a month to recover). Man - it ain't easy being a farmer!

Worm Farming

O.K. I now have three goals for this summer: 1) best garden ever, 2) chicken coop (sans chickens), 3) worm farm (avec worms).

I have a shady part of a raised bed that I built that doesn't get enough sun to grow veggies. So I figured I could use it for slow composting. But my neighbor (yes I know any readers I might have are soon going to want to know where to find HIS blog) suggested putting worms in there to speed up the composting process. My yard is amazingly worm free. I rarely find any worms when digging around, even earthworms. So I figure I'll start them (red worms) in this composting bed, and then start transporting them around the yard.

There are some links at the bottom I found on vermicomposting (the official term for worm composting).

The Story of Stuff

Why is self sustainability so important? Listen to this story:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

First Zucchini!

My first zucchini! The easiest veggie to grow? Hah!! My zucchini plant only produced 3 tiny ones last year! This year is going to be different - I can feel it!