PERFECT PLANTING WEATHER!

Thanks to everyone who helped the past few days to get the garden ready for the initial planting today!!  Even though it was drizzly, we couldn't ask for better weather to plant in, and to help the seeds have the moisture they need to get off to a great start!!  AND it feels SO good to be in the garden!!  Can you believe we're already planting for 2013!!!!  Now it's time to get our OWN gardens going at home!!

HOORAY for 2013!!

. . . UNLESS you were MEANING to dig yourself into a hole. . .   *_* 

YES, IT'S ACTUALLY TIME TO GET STARTED ON THE EARLY SPRING GARDEN!!  It's "winter thaw" in Dixie, so we start tilling the soil and plant the peas, beets, onions, and carrots.  Then we sit back and relax for another month, and drink our hot chocolate!!  LOVE our style of gardening!!

Sorting out what we have, and what we need. . . 

Devon Reeves, master gardener!!

What our dormant garden looks like. . . 

Let the tilling and raking begin!  Way to go, MaryAnn!!

We are grateful for good tools to use!

An hour of work for a few days will have things ready to plant by Saturday!!

CORN'S A-GROWIN'!!!

The Silver King corn we planted July 23rd this year has done extremely well!!  And it has been DELICIOUS!!  We've picked six of the eight beds of corn, so it won't last much longer.  Our work crew dug up three beds of the stalks, which we took down to the horses.  They are always happy when this time of year comes around!!





The tendergreen bush beans are putting on lots of beans and are ready to pick!!  Be sure you get some before they are gone!









We will be having a cornstalk pulling, and peanut pulling night on the 8th of October.  Time just keeps marching on and it seems we don't have quite enough time to do everything we would like to!  Yikes!!!

Everyone helping in the garden sure makes lots get done in just one hour of work time!  Thanks for all the help everyone!!!

Watch that corn GROW!!!

The corn was planted one month ago, and just LOOK at it!!!  It's beautiful!!  And the peanut beds are "not one whit behind" the corn in beauty and growth!

Now the last planting of squash plants was a totally different story...and I just barely figured out what the problem was!  I'm not sure where my mind has been all summer, but for some reason I didn't even THINK about how we were watering the squash.  Let's just say, squash plants were never meant to be SWIMMERS!!  And we about drowned them this year.  Maybe next year our last planting will be as good as our first!!

We're always learning something new in the garden!

                                              "Oooooh, tomatoes!!"

The second planting of green beans that Alice Steel's grandkids planted last week are coming up great!!  Good job, kids!!

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!!