Garden Harvests Beguine

The bounty is pouring in here at Leafhopper Farm. Apples are starting to ripen and fall, signaling the push to pick both at home and on other land where neighbors are too busy to process their fruit but happily share for Leafhopper and our Berkshire Pigs. The fruit in the wheelbarrow comes from LHF, but the green apples are from Ondine’s tree over the next ridge.

This large pile of greens behind the apples are lettuce, onion, and mustard seed. The onion and lettuce seed are to be saved for planting next year, but the mustard will be processed, then ground into the main ingredient in our more familiar condiment. Due to all the early heat waves in western Washington this year, there were a lot of leafy green plants bolting early to make good seed for saving. Some of this seed will go into the cold frames this fall in an attempt to grow lettuce through the winter.

A few yellow squash and the first zucchini of the summer were harvested today, along with a few pickling cucumbers and a fine ear of sweet corn for dinner tonight.

The main kitchen garden is working to produce many delicious vegetables, from carrots and beans, to edible flowers and kale. There is some space to plant the start of the winter garden. Today I pulled a lot of amaranth to give more sun to our collard greens patch and tomorrow, some thinning of the beets will make larger root growth easier.

Below in the front garden, hops abound and corn, beans, and squash go wild. A patch of bolted radishes are keeping the bees well fed while the rest of the veggies begin fruiting out in earnest. This year some cabbages are making it into maturity, and our one sunflower has been cut and dried to provide more seed for planting next year.

The third growing season here at Leafhopper Farm has been the most diverse yet, with peaches, edible flowers like Bee Balm, and a lone asparagus joining the list of cultivated food on the land. These beds are really establishing now, with watering systems and rotational planning falling into place. There is still much soil amending and a few more raised beds to build, but the zone 1 gardens are now in place, and there is more than enough room to grow everything this farm will need to feed its self and have a little extra to sell.