HOW LONG IS OUR GROWING SEASON???

We really can grow things in Santa Clara...and for a very long growing season, too!!

With lots of help, we pulled a couple of beds of squash that had seen it's last days of production, cleaned out a LOT of weeds from beds and walkways...and we planted 1-1/2 beds of beets, (our carrot bed is sprouting new carrots that were planted a couple of weeks ago!), we planted a small second planting of green beans in the back tomato bed thanks to Alice Steel and several of her grandchildren!, we planted potatoes in the recently-cleaned-out cucumber bed, we planted broccoli and cauliflower beds, AND we planted some lettuce in the almost-empty onion bed!

What a great place to live!!  An amazing growing season, and WONDERFUL people to work with in the garden!!  What could be better???  Wellllll, maybe if there was an ocean on the other side of Ivins....

Enjoy the pictures!!

Pulling and planting...

We pulled more dead and dying squash plants, making room for green beans, carrots and beets!  LOVE our growing season here in southern Utah!!

CORN PLANTING TIME!!

It was finally time to plant the corn, so we did for Family Night in the Garden on Monday night, July 23rd!!
There was only a couple of problems:
1.  I didn't pre-soak the seeds long enough for the primary root to come out.  I thought this would slow the growth down, but apparently it didn't.  I soaked them for 24 hours and that's all they needed!!
2.  We didn't have NEARLY enough seeds for the eight beds we wanted to plant.  The next day was a holiday, and then two days later I had to resort to getting seed somewhere else, at a higher price!  Ugh!!  Oh well, we have seven beds planted!!

 We  had a lot of great helpers Monday evening!!  Beds got raked, "poked" and planted, and we picked lots of squash, zucchini, and cucumbers!

 And, believe it or not, the corn planted on Monday night (the 23rd) was up 3" by Saturday night (28th)  AMAZING!!  So, I guess we only need to soak the seed overnight to give it a good headstart!

Thanks, everyone, for all the great help!!

AFTERMATH...WIND AND HAIL!

The pictures show how the wind and hail can shred our plants with very little difficulty. Good thing we're pulling a lot of them to get the corn planted!!

SINGING (or SWIMMING) IN THE RAIN!!

We FINALLY received some much needed rain!!!  Of COURSE, it had to be on the day we planned to do a lot of garden work!!  So, we just enjoyed the blessing of not being terribly hot while we got a lot done!!

(Special thanks to Elizabeth Dover for REALLY enjoying the rain, complete with swim suit and swim cap!)

TEN MORE DAYS UNTIL WE PLANT THE CORN BEDS!!!

Picking Every Two Days. . .

We picked five buckets of produce on Tuesday . . . and another five buckets two days later, on Thursday . . . and then we picked again today...and got five more buckets of produce!!  Our garden is being VERY blessed!!

CUCUMBERS. . . ZUCCHINI. . . and CARROTS. . . 

Lots of help . . . other than THESE TWO GUYS!!  ^_^  We even have POTATOES!!

Two Days Later. . .

Some may think there won't be any produce to pick when the garden was thoroughly picked two days ago.
Well, they were wrong!!  This is what we got out of the garden this morning!

FRESH FROM THE BUCKETS!!

Not nearly as much left. . . 

What's left after just a few minutes, and several bags filled!

WHERE DID THIS COME FROM. . . I didn't see any?!?!

Heavy Hitters!!

The garden is producing and THEN SOME!!  I know people are picking lots, but there is still TONS of produce that isn't being used.  I went and picked a little in the near dark last night and transplanted some of the squash that had been planted the first week of June.

This morning I went over to check on the relocated plants, and ended up picking FIVE BUCKETS OF PRODUCE!!  Amazing!!  All the people who drive by our corner, enjoy picking up FRESH, FREE veggies and express their gratitude often!!

Thanks to everyone for helping make a good thing happen in our community!!

Let The Production BEGIN!!

Here it is, May 12th, 2012 and we are harvesting HUGE beets, the last of the peas, spinach, lettuce, carrots, zucchini and yellow squash!  UNBELIEVEABLE!!  But really. . .

Had a very productive morning pulling most of the pea plants since it's warming up and they are giving up the ghost; the beets are BEAUTIFUL and huge!  We pulled a bunch, divided them between the helpers, and didn't have leftover to put out on the corner!  The carrots are growing long and straight...except for a few "best friends" that curve around each other, the onions are doing well, the peanut plants are almost all up and growing well; the tomato plants are beautiful, and the cucumbers are even starting to look like they will get with the program and GROW!

The red potatoes we planted back in March must have been chemically "treated" - - not ONE sprouted.  That bed has now been planted in zucchini, yellow zucchini, and crookneck squash.  If you're not a producer, you just might get replaced!!  (Hmmmm, life metaphor???)

The kids sure had fun helping with everything...loved seeing their excitement when pulling carrots!