Friday, June 25, 2010

one potato, two potato...

...three potato, four. Five potato, six potato, please please no more!!!

I just dug up less than a tenth of the potatoes. About 12 times this still in the field. I love potatoes, but really?!?!
M hates potatoes and L is allergic, so I guess my husband and I will be eating a lot of potatoes. And he is already talking about planting more for the fall! I think I am going to start talking about who is going to be cooking all these potatoes.


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Life is a bowl of raspberries when you have magic beans!


Our raspberries are so happy now on the south side of the embankment, they are producing whole bowls full of raspberries each day. Rather small bowls, but still a bit improvement from last year when we were each getting a quarter of a raspberry. We are also harvesting our first beans. The girls were not too eager to try the purple beans, but were excited to learn that they turn green when boiled. Magic beans!
My flower beds have become infested with these black and red caterpillars. I am not sure if they are poisonous, or what they eat, but suspect they are up to no good, so I have been gathering them up with disposable chopsticks each morning and dropping them in the river.
Feeling blue.... I planted cornflowers and campanula seeds in all different colors, but only the blue and purple actually grew, so my south flowerbed is a little monotone.
Some of the more colorful flowers are starting to revive in the north flower bed now that that the daffodil leaves have been removed.
First lily...

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Onions

My husband planted 100 onions and harvested about 80, which is quite good! Our vegetable stand in the entrance way is now full of onions. I hope they dry properly and don't rot during rainy season.
I wonder how many onions we eat in a year...
He put the onion stalks under the pumpkin vines. Unfortunately, the evil orange bugs don't seem to mind the smell of onions. It was worth a try...


Saturday, June 5, 2010

wildlife

My husband took these photos.

Though we have always had mostly cute little green frogs in the past, this year seems to be a bumper year for these big brownish frogs. Or are they toads? We see them all over the garden, everywhere. Except, of course, on the mornings when my daughters are supposed to bring a small creature to school, then they and all other small creatures are nowhere to be found. I can't say I blame them!
We were watching this chrysalis hoping to see the butterfly emerge, but we missed it.

Friday, June 4, 2010

June 4 harvest

First raspberries and lebanese zucchini. End of the snap peas. Peak of the strawberries. And zucchini are ramping it up.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

June 3

We have this really ugly metal fence on concrete blocks around our property that was there when we bought the house. Though it is good for keeping children in the yard, it is not very attractive. I am trying to find ways to either cover it up, or use it to my advantage, or both. My latest experiment (after the failed sweet peas in containers) is to plant flowers in the holes in the concrete blocks next to the carpark. One of the flowers I am testing out (matsuba botan or moss rose, thank you Vicky) bloomed today...

I also tried shibazakura (on the left) but was too late for it to flower this year, we will see if it survives until next spring. If either work out, I will expand along the fence next year.
The lawn is really ready for rainy season to arrive...brown brown brown.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

First Cucumber!

We harvested our first cucumber on June 1! Older daughter, M, made the cut.
A little bit bent due to the lack of rain, but rainy season is coming.
The ants are all over my zucchini flowers, but they still seem to be producing lots of zucchini.
My husband put up the netting for the mini pumpkins (Jack Be Little) in front of the classroom.
And kabocha female flowers are starting to bloom. They are also being eaten to bits by evil orange bugs.
And, we all know how I like cosmos...