These purple carrots

We're doing a few experiments in our garden again, a collaboration with the NDSU extension. We're nothing special. But we like to think we are, and when I word it like that... it sure sounds like we are. Special, I mean.

This garden just went crazy behind my back these last few weeks. It always does that in July. I figured we had the weeds about 80% under control. And then? July happened.

So I figured we'd better get started taste-testing these odd carrots. They're purple. I guess I told the kids these ones were going to be purple, because they were neither impressed nor surprised. With all the drama we usually have going on around here, I was honestly a bit disappointed.

We picked a few carrots. Carefully. In two bundles as to not get the two varieties mixed up.

'Cause we have to be responsible with this one, you know.


No drama to write home about.

For once.

(Yesterday was a different story... Emergency Room. Stitches. Lots of wailing and snot.)


Oh, and the girl found a very pretty squash. That was after she ate a basil leaf half the size of her head. Now do you think she'd eat a leaf of basil if I handed it to her in the house? No way. These kids always smell very, ummm... culinary(?) after a trip to the garden. One favors the cilantro, and the other two go after the basil, but it has to be foraged completely on their own.

Scratch and sniff: Basil


I'm realizing now these pictures make it look like our garden is on the moon (or Texas?), or mulched with rock, or something. This is actually up on our driveway next to the house. The driveway has weeds too. It keeps the chickens busy. Everything around here has a purpose, people.



Even the squash.

Garden of Summer-past

Goodbye garden. Hello garden-blogging fail.



I'm equal parts thrilled and cringing that October is almost here.

This is my very favorite time of year. Running through crunchy leaves, sipping spiced cider, listening to my chickens sing as they scratch up the last of Summer's bugs, tidying up the garden in perfect hazy afternoon light, hearing combines chewing through the fields surrounding us, constantly sampling bits of whatever is going on or coming off our overworked dehydrator, tripping over the produce that spills out of our entryway and into our home... The whole season is one great big sensory experience, and I love it.

Cringing because, well, these glorious weeks are so fleeting.

And here it is, yes, almost October.


{not snow - cattail seeds}

And I have failed to blog about... anything and everything. But the garden? I barely mentioned it three times. That makes me cringe too. Seedlings in eggshells, harvesting peas, and voluptuous eggplants. That was it.

I did the writing in my head.

Here are handful of abbreviated posts that never made it to press:

1. I neglected far too much of our garden the previous year. The perfect solution to that is obviously to add another fifty square feet and five NDSU home garden variety trials. The observing, learning, comparing, tasting, and ownership the kids had of their trials was a beautiful thing. I wholeheartedly recommend this program to my North Dakota friends!

2. Our pole bean tee-pee was magnificent. I've never grown pole beans before. I underestimated them. It was shocking how the tee-pee went from bare to covered to unrecognizable (in a matter of fourteen days) as the beans went beyond crazy. The cats loved that thing, far too much. They even left offerings exactly in the middle of it. So weird.





3. The younger boy planted sixteen watermelon plants. See variety trials above. See oppressed overworked dehydrator above.



4. Apples! Finally these trees produced enough to justify using the word harvest. And harvest we did. We waited four and a half years for this.


{maybe that one had a bug?}

5. I cannot imagine fall without winter squash. A whole long shelf full. Every one of my seeds rotted in the ground this Spring, and I was irrationally upset about it. Yeah, I know I can get winter squash at the grocery store or the Farmer's Market. It just isn't the same. Then I found a volunteer something among the sunflowers that looked suspiciously gourd-like. Sweet happy day when I realized it was, in fact, winter squash. God does answer insignificant little prayers.

Project Bean

Kids cooperate, intense, common goal.









Rattlesnake Snap Beans, given to us by a seed-saving kindred spirit. These will climb tee-pees made from last year's sunflower stalks... at least, that's the plan.

KinderGARDEN wrap up (all of the above)

Around here, things generally don't go as planned. The garden proved to be no exception.
a. Maybe I was dreaming too big.
b. Maybe the weather was entirely uncooperative.
c. Maybe we just couldn't get our act together.
d. All of the above.



It was a fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants Spring.
a. Our bean tunnel became a Morning Glory tunnel, and even that almost wasn't.
b. The pumpkins never had a chance.
c. Our corn maze became a popcorn maze.
d. All of the above.



I believe at one point I even said, "To heck with it all", and
a. Hauled one of the kinders off for an afternoon at our favorite greenhouse
b. Pretended that I had a nice un-swampy garden like the city folks do.
c. Resorted to WalMart as a seed source. May God have mercy on my soul.
d. All of the above.



In moments of temporary insanity, we...
a. Did actually work our butts off in the garden.
b. Decided to just grow stuff in the house instead of in the swamp.
c. Handed over too much camera to a kinder and told him to go crazy with it.
d. All of the above



July was the month things really got exciting.
a. We grew baby birds and watched ants tend herds of aphids.
b. Toys, metal ratchet sprinklers and electric fence posts met the wrath of the lawn mower.
c. We Fed ravenous dinosaurs freshly harvested kale.
d. All of the above.



Miracles happened. We started finding all kinds of treasures:
a. Sweet corn by the arm-full
b. Buckets and buckets of glorious raspberries
c. Sweet juicy little melons.
d. The popcorn maze actually grew. Bigger and bigger and more and more fun.









The crown jewel of our KinderGARDEN was without a doubt the popcorn maze along with it's the Morning Glory tunnel entrance and towering sunflower hallway exit.





a. It was theirs.





b. It was fun.





c. Like, really fun.





d. All of the above.

As much as I tried to fight it... it's true. All good things must come to an end.

Linking up one final time this year with The Inadvertent Farmer's KinderGARDENS

My little melons

Some of you have been asking about my tiny little melons. I need to say this: It feels kind of awkward and strange. I mean, do I really need to put my melons out there on public display?



Okay. So the truth is, objects may be smaller than they appear in that picture. And a little lopsided. And maybe I started to worry after my blogging friends (one after another) privately confided in me that they weren't at all satisfied with how their own little melons turned out.

These ones were developed in Minnesota. Literally, not figuratively. Minnesota is close by. Pretty close by. So I thought we should be good.

Still, I prepared the kids for the likely scenario that instead of juicy goodness, poo and filth might ooze out of them once we finally whacked one open.

If there is one thing from the garden I've been waiting for and dreaming of... One thing. Yeah, this would be it.

Hmmm...



Smells good enough.

But how would it taste?

I saved the seeds just in case we would want to plant acres and acres of them.



See. I told you they were small.

Being the sacrificial giving mother that I am, I signed myself up for the first taste. To save my kids. In case the melons were poisonous. Because that was a real possibility, you know.

Ready.

Set.

Go!



Ding! Ding! Ding! We HAVE a winner, folks!

The man of the house, the one who runs the tiller, and complains that I always plant everything way too close together, he had one suggestion:

"Maybe we should till up that whole area of alfalfa next year and grow melons instead"

He likes my melons.

The chickens got the peeling, and they agreed.



After that, I'm almost ready to declare the entire pathetic garden a roaring success this year. Almost.

Linking up with:
KinderGARDENS - almost done (the linky seems to have gone missing)
Selfie Magic

Goodbye green

It was as destructive as it was beautiful.



That second night took just about everything, even most of the poor pitiful pumpkin plant that was carefully tucked underneath a thick comforter. I'm guessing the corral hit at least 20 F, if not colder. Micro-climates and all, that's simply too cold.

We're more or less done with the growing. For this year.



Now it officially looks like autumn. Tomorrow I'll gladly admit that this is, truly, the most fantastic time of year.

The colors. The light. I'll love it. Tomorrow.

But right now, I'd like to have a moment of silence for my poor sad garden.



Or not?

*sigh*

The colors.



The late afternoon light.



The kinders don't seem too worried about the lack of green.

We've been busy:

a. Continuing to pick sweet corn. Er... popcorn. She'll figure it out someday. And no, it doesn't look like it will be mature enough to actually pop. But I could be wrong.





I'll spare you the picture where she spit it all over.

b. Swatting at the immature giants. They're now bending low to the earth.



c. Scrounging up a very few red tomatoes underneath 8 foot tall weeds, you know... before the chickens get them first.



KinderGARDENS - what week is it anyway? I'm pretty sure Kirsten is the only one keeping track at this point.

But not the raspberries

Just when I think my KinderGARDEN updates are all starting to look the same... leave it to my kids to switch things up a bit.

But first, we have sunflowers. The big ones.



The really, really really big ones. Really big.



Where's a kinder for perspective when I need one?

Before we continue any further, I need to provide a public service announcement. Go take some tylenol. Yes, now. Or the anti-nausea medication, whatever that's called. I got out my lensbaby. Just uploading these pictures was enough to give me a headache.

I did it for the wide-angle view. And, no, I'm not sorry.

Just go take the tylenol. You'll be fine.

Okay, so instead of ripping around in the popcorn maze and sunflower hallway like we always do, the boys decided to flatten the cattails. They're tall too. And fun.

Why?

Because the corral has finally dried out enough that their Daddy mowed around the swamp as best he could, leaving a perfectly enticing island of cattails. It is September after all.

Why not?



Why do all my pictures of this kid look the same?



But this kid. I can hardly manage to get his head into any pictures at all.


{that's the best you get, and yes I tried}

The Bean had so much fun harvesting sweet corn these last few weeks, she didn't want to stop.

Ummm... that's not sweet corn.



Oh. By the way. Our popcorn is nowhere near ready.

And I won't bother to show you our raspberries. Because I do that every week.







Or would you miss that if I left it out?

Nevermind.

KinderGARDENS week 18