Notes from the Garden

The garden is growing great!  I think this has been our best year for keeping up with the weeding.  We've fallen into a nice schedule of going to the garden (located on our friend's land) after dinner and staying for about two hours.  This works well as both boys often fall asleep in the car, giving us a little time to work.  Though hoeing with a baby on the back is a great workout, it's not so much fun.

So far, in the middle of July, we have tons of green beans and are just getting our first cucumbers and onions.  We have lots of tomatoes on the vine, though they are still green.  The watermelon vines are just flowering.

We added a new super to the hives today.  NT weighed the hives about two weeks ago by stepping on a bathroom scale and weighing each box..  All together the hives weighed 350 pounds.  It looks like a good year for honey.

Going up to the garden has been such a great family activity this year.  Jacob likes to play in the dirt with his trucks and Oli is a great helper by doing things such as entertaining Henry, getting water for everyone, and picking berries and onions.  It is fun to work together as a family.  This is the first year that I haven't spent most of my time entertaining fussy kids or trying to work with a giant pregnant belly.  It feels great to actually be able to finish weeding a row.

Of course, we also have our little garden in our backyard.  So far we've eaten a few small tomaotes (stupice variety), lots of swiss chard, green beans, lettuces, and carrots, as well as cherries from our cherry tree.  The strawberries and spinach finished about a month ago and the raspberries and peas just finished.  It is amazing what you can grow in a small space!