My First Olive

OK, I'm excited.

I just found an olive on my olive tree. I'm late, this should have been harvested some time back, but I hadn't seen it in the back of the greenhouse.

When do you harvest olives? "October, November and December: Depending on the olive variety and the area and the weather, green olives are harvested in September and October for the table. Olives for oil are picked around early to mid-November, when the olive have just turned green to purple and they're at their fullest with oil."

So it's an over-ripe olive, but it's an olive.

How long does it take for an olive tree to bear fruit? "That is a function of cultivar. 'Arbequina' and 'Koroneiki' begin fruiting at an early age (about 3 years). Other cultivars do not make fruit until they are five to twelve years old. Most olive cultivars will not produce fruit without a pollinator tree of a different cultivar."

My tree is two years old. 

Of course, it's hardly edible yet. The process for making olives suitable for eating is long and arduous. I'll wait until I have an actual harvest before trying that.

UpCycling Chicken Feed Bags

What do you do with used chicken feed bags?

Here's what I've done.

They make excellent grocery bags. If you leave the diameter alone (as I do), then they'll be big grocery bags, but grocery bags are smaller than is completely useful anyway.

And the "fabric" is stiff enough that you can sew a box for your industrial size spools of thread.

Works pretty well.

I used a standard sewing machine, with regular needles and regular thread. I needed to be careful, particularly with hemming the top, but in the end, it worked just fine.

These are "quick & dirty" sewing, which is my specialty. I wouldn't want to sell these at the local farmer's market. But they hold groceries great. They make use of empty feed bags great. And they certainly are unique!

Christmas Pepper Harvest

Second to the last pepper harvest.

Bell peppers, Felicity sweet peppers, Serrano peppers and a pair of Jalapeños.

Anaheims are still doing well, considering all things. .
 

Planting the Garlic

I'm still looking for the best way to invest my time and energy in the garden. Everything we grow is yummy, but not everything gets eaten. So I'm looking to find things that are a) yummy and b)  going to get eaten and c) relatively productive without too much work.

Measured by these standards, garlic is a real winner. It's easy to grow. It's easy to harvest and store. And it's going to get eaten!

In years past, I have grown garlic just from the generic garlic that can be found in the grocery store. Growing it at home makes it quite a lot better, and larger heads, but I wanted to step it up a notch.

This year, I am not growing any grocery store garlic. I am growing three kinds of special garlic, and elephant garlic. In the first bed is Spanish Roja with Sicilian garlic. The back bed has inchilian on the South side comma and elephant garlic on the north side.

Garlic vs Pumpkins

You know it's being an interesting summer when the garlic grows as big as the pumpkins. This is the largest pumpkin (and the largest garlic).

Other interesting obstacles: 

• The cherry tomatoes (Chocolate Cherry) have done wonderfully well. The other tomatoes have not. The slicers, in particular (Brandywine), have done poorly: only a few flowers fruit, despite a bees nest and  hand pollination.
• The first lettuce bolted quickly (<2 weeks) and later plantings refused to germinate. 
• The broccoli bolted quickly as well, but the chickens enjoyed it. 
• Watermelon kept dying. It would be just growing fine, small melons growing on it, then bang, it died (both in greenhouse and in a hanging pot outdoors).

On the other hand:

• Peas and beans did wonderfully. 
• Kale grew more than I planted (some re-seeding from last year's plants)! All of it thrived. 
• Peppers grown in the greenhouse thrived (though those in the garden languished). 
• The rest of the herbs grew pretty well, particularly spearmint & lemon balm.
• Nasturtium grew wonderfully wherever they were!

The Pond, Mid July

Garden Update, Early July

This year's garden is doing pretty well. The nasturtiums are taking over both the compost pile and the beehive next door.

 

I've harvested the regular size garlic already. 80 heads or so. I'll harvest the elephant garlic in a week or two. It's not ready yet.

 

Im drying the garlic on the back porch: garlic hanging everywhere. My bride thinks I'm warding off a legion of vampires. I now have the best smelling back porch on the planet.

 

 

Beets desperately need thinning, which is fine since beet greens are wonderful.

 

I'm wondering if it's normal for a pomegranite tree to have red and yellow leaves so early in the season. It seems healthy otherwise.

I have a sunflower in the middle of each bed. A few are beginning to flower.

 

I can't get enough of sunflowers.

In the greenhouse, I have some interesting things growing. This is a watermelon the size of a golf ball.

Hand pollenated, of course.

 

 

A friend gave me pepper starts. These are called Felicity.


















These are my own bell pepper starts. I've gotta start the peppers earlier next year.

 I'm air-drying herbs now. This is pineapple sage.

And these are bay leaves.

 

 

 

 

Back outside, I'm letting the chickens help with the beans this year. I do like the look of them growing here. And they seem to grow well.

Peas are almost done. I'll pull them out shortly, and make more room for the squashes at their feet.