Garden Updates

Chrysanthemum in a pot by the lettuce and Garlic

Loquat blossoms in full bloom. They smell like honey and the bees love 'em.

Our loner tomato

The Japanese Cukes that are preventing the 6th raised bed from going in!

What a pretty Romaine, lettuce that is.

Shelling peas coming along

Peppers in November, yup!

Napa cabbages are everywhere!

Can you find the "Confused Pear"? Yes, the leaves are starting to change color, it's Nov. But the tree flowered after we had our first load of pears and it produced a few more in the same season!

Purple Basil, we are so amazed by this plant. Our bee-keeper friend brought it as a gift in the summer. We've cloned it and it's just taken over the herb garden.

The ever bearing bitter melon. There's 3 just in this pic and it's still flowering.

Satsuma Mikans are ripening! (backyard)

Harvest Updates

This carrot weighed in at 11 oz on it's own. It also won the ugliest carrot contest. I think it wants to be in "Veggie Tales", since it's growing eyes. Root know nematodes?

A sneaky bitter melon got away and matured to have seeds. The yellow flesh doesn't get sweet, but the red pulp surrounding the seeds do have slight sweetness to them. Very pretty too.

Harvesting the front yard Sweet Potatoes, C found a "duck" shaped one!

Mom found the "BIG one"

Tthe vines now ready for composting. Looking at this pic, you can see it's in the front yard, the asphalt is right there.

Our harvest from just 11 little plants we planted in summer.

Exciting new bed! Raised bed that is...

Raised bed #6 is being made right now. We decided to postpone the bed going in right now because, we have Cucumbers that are still growing strong right where the soil needs to be dug up to fit the raised beds. You can also see the Sun Oven on the left, cooking something.

Father and son working together. Power drills are fun toys for boys

Homegrown, Homemade food

Lots of Bitter melon ready to be cooked. We usually cook it with tofu, carrots and bulb onions

Chili made from scratch with Homegrown/canned green tomato salsa & Peppers from the Dervaes that we traded our Mandarins for. Organic black beans, crushed tomatoes from the Co-Op and organic chicken broth we made in the sun oven. We make a large batch and freeze 3/4 of it.

Gluten-free, dairy-free pizza made from scratch. Peppers again from the Dervaes! Crop swapping is awesome!

Kuri Kabocha pumpkins just out of the sun oven. I just discovered that if you sprinkle cinnamon mixed with stevia powder on the pumpkin it's like eating a dessert! Very low glycemic index food.

Persimmon

Jiro(or Fuyu) persimmon is the one with the orange leaves. Once the leaves fall off, it will go dormant, so it will be a perfect time to plant it into the ground, in the front yard! I'll post pics when it goes in the front.

Planted potatoes!

These are the seed potatoes we planted today. The quarter shows how small these are! I hope they aren't too small that they won't produce enough. It's all a learning process. These seed potatoes were saved from the harvest in early spring, and kept in the plastic bag in the fridge. Let's see if they do well.

Diseases

Wilting disease in Asian Pear. This happens when the tree gets over watered. It happened right after the 2" rain we had in Oct.

not quite sure why the trunk of the Loquat is splitting like this. I hope no boring insect finds this. I might have to coat it with some wax.

Fall Garden

Here is our garden from the east side

Here's the shot from the west side

close up on the napa cabbage bed, the frilly stuff is hairy vetch(green manure) tiny sprouts are more napa cabbage planted later. We're trying out the "let's see how many napa cabbage plants we can squeeze in?" method. Of course we'll be thinning out as we go.

red leaf and romaine Lettuce sprouting

the newest member of our garden: the Chaya plant. known to be more nutritious than spinach and touted to cure diabetes! But must be cooked well(20 min) to nullify the oxalic acid which is toxic to us.(sun oven would be perfect for this) It's supposed to be disease/pest free. Only negative: frost sensitive.

late cucumbers doing well

The last tomato plant in our garden, actually doing very well without disease and in a pot!(15 gal)

Loquat tree blossoming slightly earlier than normal

Peppers growing decently

British Wonder Shelling Peas are growing OK. I was disappointed with the germination percentage. I'd say only 40% came up

what 16 pounds of Mandarins look like!