Happy Memorial Day

Red raspberries begin to ripen immediately after cherries are harvested

Since most gardens start out as tilled patches of lawn, weeds become a serious problem this time of year. I like how Robert Frost described the process with "Putting In The Seed" (Mountain Interval, 1920):

Nanking bush cherries ready to fill a Memorial Day pie

How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

"Soil tarnishes with weed," appropriate mental image. Some people ask what's the organic way to control weeds.  The best approach IMO is to actually get down on hands and knees and pull every single weed by hand after a good rain once. Then, cover space between plants with cardboard or newspaper, and layer grass clippings, straw, or mulched leaves on top. This approach keeps weeds down for us all summer. Except in the corn, where my Mantis tiller and a hoe do a fine job once or twice until towering stalks shade the earth.

These short carrots were harvested from our cold frame

Though it's still early in the season, we're enjoying harvests of beets, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, onions, peas, carrots, strawberries, sour cherries, and raspberries. We always have fresh eggs on hand, thanks to our egg-laying Rhode Island Reds. Herbs are at their peak freshness now, too.


Summer crops of cukes, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers are soon coming. Happy Memorial Day and happy gardening season as we celebrate the unofficial start of summer.

Love these helpers!

The vegetable garden in May

Lettuce, broccoli, and peas on the fence (volunteer sunflower to the right)

Huge pea pods with 12 peas swelling inside

Spring garden to the left, summer garden center, and corn patch right

May 14, 2012

Organic broccoli harvest.

Broccoli is in season; though cabbage worms and other pests have chewed holes in the leaves, nylon hose "socks" pulled over these developing crowns have organically protected the harvest for our enjoyment.  A hoticultural extension agent told us that broccoli, more than any vegetable in the supermarket, absorbs pesticide and stores it.  Supermarkets provide pest-free broccoli at a cost.  This organic broccoli is worth all the effort we put into it; from this harvest alone we froze six quart bags for future use and enjoyed all we could eat fresh.  This particular variety will continue to produce sizeable crowns all season long.

Sour cherries frozen for later use.

The rest of our sour cherries all ripened at once.  We picked, pitted, and either ate them fresh or froze in quart bags for future use.  It's a lot of work picking and pitting, but we think the result is worth the effort.  Next year, we will plan ahead for cherry jam.

Pea pods are growing from abundant flowers, the first set of sweet corn is about four inches tall, and the main summer vegetable garden is growing up.

The summer vegetable garden.

Cherries!

One quart of cherries from just one bush - we have 9 bushes.

Nanking bush pie cherries ready to pick.

Some people spend their Friday evenings in funny ways, but we spent ours picking home-grown sour cherries.  Just one year ago we received these bare-root sticks in the mail no taller than ten inches, but after a year of growth and a Spring of beautiful white blooms, we are being treated to cherries - the kind that taste like Life Saver cherry.  Though many of them turned red last week, after careful taste-testing and plenty of squirt tests, we determined that our first bush is ripe for the picking.  And that's what we did - the whole family was involved.  We gathered about one quart, and this is just the first out of nine bushes like it; the others still need more time to ripen.

We have helpers; the whole family was involved!

These are sour cherries, the kind that work best for pies and preserves; as opposed to sweet cherries, the kind that are good for fresh eating.  We are all fans of cherry pie, so that was the consensus for our first harvest.  The pits seem to be of a cling-free sort and pop out when the fruit is squeezed--as does a bunch of juice.  It didn't take too long to pit all of them, to mix with sugar, tapioca, and a dash of almond extract, and to fold under a pie crust. 

The result?  Homemade cherry pie, no pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers.  Just home-grown goodness from the bush to our plates in a little over an hour.  If you are wondering about the variety, these are Nanking Bush Cherries, sold here:  http://gurneys.com/nanking-bush-pie-cherry-tree/p/08502/.  Product description - Early and extra productive! Produces sweetly scented spring flowers and tremendous crops of tasty fruit. Bears up to 8 qts. of bright red cherries; ripens in June. Grows 6-8 ft. high; looks good in a hurry. For best yield, plant two or more. Zones 2-8

Mixed with sugar, tapioca, and folded in a crust.

The finished product!