Busy bee

Well, this summers seems to have turned into a veggie/ fruit, berry picking, jam making season.  We moved in here in the winter so I had no idea that we had an apple, cherry plum and blue damson *I think* tree in our yard.  On top of that, I started a veggie garden for the kids to play around with caring, picking, watching how food grows and all though I have no clue what I’m doing, quite a bit turned out quite good.  And on top of all that, we’ve been doing day trips to the farm to pick the berries as they ripen which I’ve been making jams out of.  Cooper LOVES to help cook and I love what they’re learning going from the farm/veggie garden to the table.  For lunch today we had cherry tomatoes with cucumber slices that we had just picked with assorted jams on toast.  We tried our raspberry and blueberry jam today and they were great.  The blueberry jam is just wonderful and with each bite I was imaging what else it would be good on. I’m thinking warmed up a bit and put on top of ice cream. mmmmmm…..

    Raspberry, cherry plum and blueberry jams. There’s also a yellow plum chutney there.  Tomatoes, cucumber and banana peppers from the garden. 

 

   banana peppers that I can’t wait to pickle.  They are VERY hot raw.

 

        Blue Plums almost ready. Might be the first few weeks of September for these.

 

  This is the bean I’m not too sure about.  The seed pack said green bean (I guess I need to look for more specific types of seeds as these are definitly not what I thought).  I’ve been told they’re Fava beans.  I don’t think these will be repeated next year…. I don’t really know what to do with fava beans and the plants grew a lot taller than I had planned for.

 

  And the mini rose bush has bloomed again.  I thought something had gotten to it as every petal and leave fell off after it’s first blooming.  I thought it was completely dead until one day I came out and there was a single bloom on it.  Now it’s as if it’s coming back to life. it’s turning green again with new leaves and more and more buds.  I don’t know anything about roses, so I don’t know if this is this plants normal growing cycle….?

 

The garden

  Have you ever seen a tomato plant this big?!?!?!  it’s 2 plants…. cherry tomato.  It’s gone absolutely crazy.

 

  The peas right before we picked them all.

 

  The beans.  Still haven’t figured out what type though.  I though we planted green beans but….

 

   One of the 3 green pepper plants.

 

  The banana peppers

 

     The pumpkin

 

  Yellow Plum Tree

 

There’s a few others that I didn’t get pictures of today. The apple tree, the italian plum tree and the canteloupe.  More pictures to come though once the rain clears.

From field to table

  The first pick

  Searching, searching…..

 

  The strawberries getting some water

 

   I love this farm for how scenic it is.

 

   it’s for sale now and I do hope they choose their buyers wisely. Ones that will want to keep the farm the way it is.  It has so much to offer.

   Carter’s favorite part- the animals.

 

  Cooper learning how to make jam

 

  Almost there

 

   The finished product.

A change

From the garden pictures, all though I do have a few more that I took yesterday .

This is our new family member Boo.  She has been the perfect fit to our home. She LOVES the kids even after weeks of Carter chasing her and being a bit rough. She puts both boys to bed every night. She gets all snuggled up to them, starts purring and stays for as long as she can.  She LOVES playing with toy mice and has the quietest, sweet little voice. 

And she is always sprawled out.  The cute cat pictures you see of cats all curled up in a ball, sleeping certainly did not have her in them- lol.

 

 

 

Time

Measure of time in the vegetable garden.   The tomatos.

  May 19

 June 14

 

   June 23

 

  July 1st

More of the garden

   From this

 

  To this

 

 

Bad, bad

I’ve been meaning to post for daaaayyyyssss now.  Here’s a little snippet of the latest garden bloomer until I get more than a few minutes to actually sit and write a proper post…..

 

 

Garden

A few days of rain followed by a few days of sun has brought some growth to the garden.  Seeds are starting to pop.

 

   beans are starting their climb

 

  Tomatos are flowering and one little tomato has begun

 

  lettuce has started

 

  and so have the radishes

 

  And found this guy.  The boys love finding snails, but I hear they can be a real menace to your garden.

The garden

  Anyone know what this tree might be and what those pods are?  I’ve been googling popular trees in Southern Ontario but am not having much luck yet…..

 

   The apples are starting to bud.  I’m starting to think though that they are crab apples in which case they will be more of a mess than  anythign else.

 

  And something is enjoying our beans.  Arg!

                      

 

 

I’m trying to do beans, tomato, peppers, radishes, 1 cucumber, lettuce and peas.  This will definitly be  a learning process for me as I’ve never done more than peppers and tomatoes.

And from around the rest of the back yard

 

                                             Apple tree maybe?