The Outside Gardens
I really meant to post about more gardening than what was in the greenhouse, but alas, haying takes precedence over blogging and gardening too.
These guys keep a watchful eye on us as we are making the hay.
Here are some outside garden photos, although the garden looks like a July garden instead of an August garden. 
Potatoes looking good. This is the “new” garden planted with potatoes, corn, dry beans, garlic, parsnips and winter squash. I am not hopeful about the winter squash this year. A good fall could surprise me.
Corn not so much either. Dry beans in the background look like they might come to fruition. Fingers crossed. I waffled on the corn planting even with seeds in hand. I planted with the knowledge that if I didn’t plant I would not weed this area, even if the corn becomes fodder at least I will attempt to keep the spot weeded.
Jane’s parsnips before thinning.
Gee garlic, do you think you can start drying down some?
The old garden, it’s long and skinny and hard to get a photo of. From L to R: storage onions, peas, kid’s row, carrots, beets, rutabagas, and mangels.
The Green Arrow shell peas are doing well, despite using old seed.
The Sugar Sprint snap peas germinated poorly, despite being fresh seed this year.
The view from the other end.
A real hodge -podge of brassicas, celeriac, lettuce, summer squash, dill, cilantro, pole beans, cucumbers, calendula and marjoram.
So that’s it, the vegetables are starting to make some headway, and we’ll have plenty to eat that’s for sure, just maybe not what we planned in the beginning.
Food Renegade
Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op
I think we’re all having a late year in the harvest department! But your garden looks amazing and I’m jealous of your garlic – just imagine how big they’re going to be when they’re finally ready
You mentioned the Jane rutabagas last fall so I tried a pkt. and am sooo please to actually have a wonderful crop growing…one of the few things alive in our drought-stricken plot d/t being close to the greenhouse and hose!! But as most gardeners I remain ever the optimist! Its been one of the worst gardening seasons in my 45 years of planting but we actually got 1-1/2″ of rain in the last two days after weeks of none. The buckwheat had barely come up but will look good now for, hopefully, a fall honey crop. I love your pictures.
Your gardens look wonderful – behind or not. It has been a gardening season full of ups and downs this year. My potatoes did really well, though dried off earlier than I had hoped for. The onions were very disappointing, garlic was good. One sure has to be flexible in these wild weathered times. I’d love to have the gardening space to try dried beans and other crops, but I am working with what I have right now. Great photographs as usual. (It’s such a comfort to have a barn full of hay, isn’t it?)
I love every single photo you displayed here…. so healthy, so bright, so pleasing. It warms anybody’s heart seeing the extent of gardening endeavor.
ok I cant stand it-
what is the jar of water doing there?
Mica, to remind me I need to drink more water, those rows are long!
So? Is that a quart of moonshine next to the peas? Sort of a little pick-me-up when you get done weeding the row?
Nah, just some branch water
Such an inspiring garden! Am I correct in thinking that you don’t water your outside garden, just relying on rainfall? That’s so hard to imagine here in Los Angeles, where my veggie garden needs frequent watering, even with 3″ of mulch and a load of biodynamic compost and bokashi mixed into the soil.
Debra, actually we don’t rely on rainfall, (since we don’t usually get summer rain here) but dryland gardening with wide row spacing, and keeping a dust mulch going. I wrote a little bit about that in this post:
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/i-heart-hoeing/
Some don’t agree with Steve Solomon when he writes about mulch bringing up the deeper moisture to the surface whereas the dust layer stops the moisture trek to evaporation. I don’t like to mulch (slug and vole havens) and know that the dust mulch works well here in western Oregon so I’m sticking with this method. He details it pretty well in Water-wise Vegatables and Gardening When It Counts, Growing Food in Hard Times. Of course everyone thinks he is a crackpot, but that suits me just fine. The truck farmers around here don’t irrigate much either and they plant cole & squash crops in blazing hot weather, keep them weeded and they turn out fantastic
However, LA is a much different story
Did you get your Sugar Sprints from Territorial this year? Mine scarcely put up one single shoot.
Emily, nah I’m about as tired of Territorial’s weak seeds as Fedco’s – I got them from Johnny’s. Must be a weak variety. The Green Arrow seeds were from ’05!
How do you keep up with it all. Between the indoor and outdoor garden it looks like an immense area. And haying and animals to boot. – Margy
I barely do, no rest for the wicked
Some things get away from me, namely weeds.
we are overrun with Japanese beetles and I recently learned that garlic repels them. definitely going to be growing some garlic around here next year!
Your garden looks great!