Just the Two of Us

We are back to a quiet household of two. After a two week visit (three weeks for Jonas), we took our nephews to the airport to fly back home to Colorado Springs. We enjoyed our time with Cameron and Jonas, getting to know them better and finding out what they think about the world. It was good to have a few extra hands to pull weeds and do a few other odds and ends, but they made it clear farming (or market gardening) was not going to be in their future. The search for an heir goes on…

Garlic curing on the beautiful drying rack

Weeding has been the major task of late, along with clearing out some beds for a second round of planting. All the peas and fava beans are out now (other things that finished earlier have been out for some time, those beds already replanted). I harvested the garlic last week. It is now in the garage, curing (drying) on a great rack Steven built several years ago. It will take a few weeks for the garlic to dry, so the wrappers around the cloves may feel a bit thicker, until they finish drying and become papery.

July is that in between month: the cool season crops come to an end and we wait for the warmer, long season crops to come into production. Looking at the harvest schedule, most things are pretty well on track.

I am going to pick a tomato today

Zucchini and summer squash are producing well, I found the first ripe tomato, and I can see little cucumbers forming on the vines. There has been one huge disappointment, though: green beans. First, I began my planting almost three weeks late, because of the timing of spring rains. Then, my first planting had very poor germination. I planted three varieties: Nickel and Tavera, both French filet/haricots verts varieties, and Dragon Tongue, a purple striped yellow snap bean. The Dragon Tongue did pretty well, though I didn’t plant much of it. The other two did not. I replanted about three weeks ago. This round was better, at least for Tavera, but still not Nickel. I am wondering if I just got a bad batch of seed. I’ll try one more time this week, but there just may not be many snap beans this year.

Shelling beans are doing great

Luckily, the shelling/dry beans I planted three weeks ago are doing great, so there will be other types of beans.

Next up, more weeding (of course), filling up those empty beds with fall and continuous crops (lettuce and carrots), and more family!