changes

We were able to pick peas and distribute to our CSA members for a number of weeks. Along with potatoes, lettuces, greens, carrots, beets, radishes and herbs..basil and sage most recently. But peas are done now, every plant has gone to the pigs and been consumed in the blink of an eye. This weekend we harvested enough cucumbers for our CSA members to all get at least one, and the cucumber plants are alive with bees. Mostly bumblebees, not really a plant that the honeybee seems to like. The flowers are big enough that the bumblebee fits in their nicely..I bet the honeybee would be drowning in pollen with the first flower! Homer hates the bees so much he asks me to pick cucumbers, as the 6 rows under the hoophouse are buzzing and vibrating with the bee activity. They hide well, so much parting of leaves has to occur to get them. And when we miss them..the next day they are a foot long! We grow Marketmore 76, 80 and a pickling cucumber. Cucumbers a re a certain sign it is summer, as they love the warm weather and shrivel up and die the minute it gets chilly. Peas on the other hand love cool weather, and shrivel up and die just as the cucmbers come in. We will plant peas again towards mid-August..warm enough to germinate, but as they grow out the weather is cooling off.

The tomatoes are changing from day to day. Not yet enough of those to harvest for the CSA, and it is so hard to resist pulling them while pink not red. They go from this:

to this in one day!

We want them vine ripened and bright red, hard to wait! We have about 10 varieties planted, this is a Glacier, always the earliest tomato we grow. We do not grow the hybrids but grow the open pollinated varieties..and this plant is a volunteer from last years crop..thank goodness, because Glacier was sold out at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange this year. The beauty  of growing what we grow..the seeds will sprout and grow out just like their parents, while  a hybrid will not usually produce, is usually sterile or grows something unlike what was grown the year before. It will not "grow true".

We are gathering Mason jars for peaches, pickles and tomato sauce. Homer will be building shelves in the laundry room, just the depth of the canning jars, so that they will be visible to us every day, the strawberry jam is ready and waiting for a spot, much more to join soon.

The pond is watertight, and refills itself with rain and occasional additions from the hose. The fish are safe in their overturned milk carton, and the geese are loving it.