I Found a Heart Beet today. I'm still Alive!

You never know just what you'll find when picking veggies. I found a nice heart beet today when getting beets for farmers market.


It's not often there's such a nice heart shaped beet.

Tiger Lily bouquets

The tiger lilies have been blooming and make lovely flower arrangements along with other wild flowers like the white yarrow in this photo. They add color and are a pretty addition to the veggies I take to the Grand Rapids Farmers Market. You can find more of my framed photos of tiger lily flowers in my Imagekind Tiger Lily gallery.


The tiger lilies are almost done blooming so there won't be many more to take to market. Hopefully the glads will begin blooming before too long.

Tags: Tiger+Lilies,ImageKind,Tiger+Lily,Flowers

The Garden is Growing

Row covers came off the tomatoes yesterday. Stakes were pounded in and the tomatoes tied up. The vines are nice and healthy with some blossoms. This first picture shows a couple of rows of beets, three rows of kohlrabi, and a row of tomatoes.

Today I was able to pick quite a few bunches of beets for tomorrows farmers market. This next pictures shows a row of shallots, two rows of onions, and more 4 rows of beets. Got a quite a few nice baseball sized walla-walla onions picked too.

This last picture shows a couple rows of glads and some tomato plants.

Will have to make another trip to the garden and see how many kohlrabi are big enough to pick. First I'm gonna go and check the wild blueberry patch, I've heard they are ready.

Preparing for Farmers Market

Tomorrow starts the season at the Grand Rapids Farmers Market so I spent the day getting ready. There's not a whole lot ready in the garden yet, did find many more radishes than I thought there'd be. Aren't the 'Easter Eggs' pretty?



Picked another batch about the same size as what's on the sorting screen. Ended up with 57 bunches. There was also rhubarb and green onions to pick and bunch.

After getting veggies picked it was time to find all the market supplies etc. I'd put away so they could be found. Ummm, Well.... There was some searching involved. It wasn't to bad really, most things were pretty much where I thought they'd be.

Have the truck all loaded and ready to go except for the cash box, veggies, and cold water. Always gotta have something cool to drink when it's hot out. Now for a good nights rest, then up early and off to market.

Planting Tomatoes

It was time to get the tomatoes planted, the weather was good, the ground ready, rows covered with plastic, and I found the time. So.... The trailer got loaded up with the needed equipment and tomatoes. There were 75 plus plants in nice shape for putting in the ground. Eight Taxi (a yellow determinate, tennis ball to baseball size) and the rest were New Girl, an improved Early Girl (indeterminate, very uniform fruit of tennis ball to baseball size.)


The garden cart is used for planting. First holes are punched with a bulb planter, tomato plants are set, and then given a drink of water.


Next, hoops are put in place for the row cover.



Looking across the garden with a couple of hoops over a tomato row. The Mississippi river is in the background with trees on the far bank.



The garden after the row covers are up. The three rows in the foreground are onions and shallots. Next are four rows of beets, then two and a half rows of glads. On the other side of the row covers there are two rows of kohlrabi, two more rows of beets, and another row of kohlrabi.

Technorati Tags: planting, tomatoes, beets, onions, shallots, kohlrabi

Planting onions yesterday got me thinking (Always a dangerous thing!) about veggie art. So.... I checked Imagekind for onion art. Found something that tickled my fancy. Look at what I found!


Tears Print

Now doesn't that want to make you Laugh, or Cry?

Technorati Tags: onion, veggie art, art

Planting Onions

Yesterday morning was beautiful and the onion plants arrived in the mail. So... I decided to till up a few rows in the garden and get them planted.

I started with the Walla-Wallas, planting them about 4 inches apart in three rows down the center of the raised row.

It was really nice working in the garden with the sun shining, a slight breeze blowing, and the sound of water rushing over the rocks in the Mississippi river.




Using the garden cart is so much easier on the knees and back when planting. Can't remember how many years I went without a garden cart, and after building one and using it, said to myself "Why didn't I build one years ago?"

After getting a batch of plants in they were mulched with straw to help keep moisture and cut down on weeds. If only, all the good stuff grew as well as the weeds. Wouldn't it be nice to have great crops without weeds? Guess, we can dream can't we!




After getting the Walla-Wallas planted and mulched, I started another row with Red Bull onions.

I haven't tried these in years past. Hope they do well. Mostly red onions just haven't gotten as big as I'd like in other years. They haven't sold as well at farmers market either. It seems the big Walla-Wallas have sold the best. Maybe if red onions get big they will sell too. I can hope.



The onions were ordered from Johnny's selected seeds and arrived in great shape with good sized plants in good sized bunches.

I've had good luck with orders from Johnny's and will likely be ordering from them again.

This spring's order also included seeds for New Girl tomatoes, Early Wonder tall top beets, Taxi tomatoes, and Provider beans.

Now that the onions are in, I'm gonna try and get some shallots and galdiolus in. Looks like another nice day, so maybe I'll get some of them in the ground.


Technorati Tags: planting, garden, onions, seeds

Enjoying the Day!

Who's been sitting in my lawn chair?

It wasn't Goldilocks!



If this nice warm weather keeps up it won't be long and the garden can be tilled and some things planted. The electric fence is turned off and the wires were taken down for winter. I see fresh deer tracks in the dirt so will have to get the wires back up and the wire hot just as soon as things get planted.