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Everywhere I look in the garden these days there are more and more colors bursting into view: red tomatoes, purple cosmos, yellow squash, the orange of ripening pumpkins, and everywhere the green green green of a fully flourishing August garden.  There are so many treasures tucking into small places and under leaves, and it is […]

Just as I headed out last night to snap some photos, it started pouring buckets, but luckily I was rewarded with a tremendous view after the rain cleared out.  The garden seems to be in a bit of a lull this week – the copious amounts of beans and berries are slowing down, and the

The garden has officially passed from slightly organized to a complete jungle.  Every year I reach this point and promise that the next year I won’t over-plant and I will stay on top of building supports for all those tomatoes – ah next year! The one thing that is looking particularly good this year are

Let me give you a little vegetable garden tour this week! Start at the gate to the main gardens.   First you will find the large raised bed that my mother cares for that is simply stuffed full of growing  thriving plants and an abundance of kale! Turn left through the gate and you come into

This week we started filling up our pantry with jams and other treats from the garden all ready for the winter: cherry preserves, strawberry jam, radish relish, rhubarb sauce, frozen fruit and juiced kale, hung and dried garlic, and black raspberry jam.  It is immensely satisfying to collect fresh food straight from the garden and

The garden is producing now, and not just a little supplement to go with dinner, but a whole mess of fruit and veggies that we are eating and sharing as fast as we can.  We’re quickly surpassing our consumption and finding ways to save and preserve food as we can.  We never seem to leave

 Today we finally got Cocoa his summer haircut!  After seeing animals sheared several times and shearing our own goats, I thought I knew what was coming, but this was a whole different ball of wax. We started off getting the llama in the barn and all brushed up. This morning Mariacher Shearing Services showed up

With the warmer weather, we’ve crossed over from spring to summer, and with it the summer harvest is almost on.  We’re just on the brink of harvesting so much from our gardens.  The zucchinis are almost ready, the berries are hanging green on the branches, green beans are flowering like crazy, and the onions are

We’ve had such a dry spell over the last week.  Perfect weather for playing outside, hitting the beach and hosting some 6 year old birthday parties for my twins, but it’s been a bit of a scramble to keep all the plants watered.  We’ve lost a lot of our first year strawberry plants and a

 The garden is at that lovely stage where some plants are starting to produce and get bigger by the day, yet it isn’t too late to fill in the gaps with seeds in time for them to grow this year.  Today I snuck in a few extra squash seeds between the corn and the edges