sunflower seeds ~ pomegranite seeds

While it's summer there, I'm scraping ice off my windshield in the mornings and looking at the last stubborn leaves swirling in the wind. It's winter in the Brindabella mountains; there's snow in the Australian ski fields. But the photos of my friends' smiling faces relaxing in the shade at the Farm sustain me. I will be there as soon as I can once this current job is done, so keep a cold beer and a warm hug ready for me. oxo, Tink

Great Sunflower Project

I signed us up for the Great Sunflower Project. http://www.greatsunflower.org/en. This is an experiment to track bees in various areas. Participants plant Lemon Queen sunflowers, then watch the flowers for 15 minutes and count the bees that come. That sounded like something we could manage, even on a hot day. I ordered the seeds and am waiting for them to arrive. I think we'll plant them along the side of the shed.

Now It's Hot

Oh yeah. It's summer now! The week started out pretty nice. On Monday I got these new chairs for the farm.

Buddy pulled the last of the peas from the back of row 3. It's ready to plant in beans once we give it a quick till. 

We saw this guy as we were leaving one evening. Alligator lizards like this eat tons of bugs, so we're glad to see him in our garden.

Rick and Rene make plans for the playhouse. That might be something we work on when it's in the shade.

The zuchs are starting to flower.

The black cherry tomatoes are making big bunches.

And the Tangerines are starting to show color.

I got the tub area straightened up and ready to go. It's well shaded this year.

Which is going to be important! On Friday, it got up to 90.

And by Sunday it was almost 100.

We mulched the area around the apple tree, and planted a hill of Boston Marrows there. By Saturday, a sprout was just showing. The Bidwell melons in row 1 are sprouting also.

This is the "fire" flowerbed. There are Tigger melons, two kinds of sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, and marigolds, all in fiery oranges, reds, and yellows. I weeded and thinned them some on Saturday.

We also rushed to get the last of the mulching done. We still need to do a few sections, but only ones that will be dug up. All the planted areas are mulched and irrigated.

The sundial had been sited under the cherry tree, but by now that is in total shade, so I decided to resite it on top of the raised bed. I wanted to make sure it was aligned to true north, so I pulled out my phone's compass app to check. For some reason, everyone found it hilarious that I was using my phone to calibrate the sundial. And by the way, the bar in the center of a sundial is a "gnomon."

Summer Is Here

The heat finally hit, although it's still cloudy and humid--definitely El Nino weather this year. And, knowing this heat was coming, we finished up what we could. On May 27, it was barely 56 degrees. Three days later, it hit mid 80s.

But I'm horribly behind on documenting everything. Lets head back to last week, when Titus and Jane had a great party. Kelly was in town and it was her birthday.

Karen was quite festive.

Laura cooks while Bill looks on.

And of course there was music.

And last weekend was Silver Dollar Fair weekend too. Here I am with my quilted table runner.

Eventually we got back to farming, and we harvested these lovely carrots.

This one was huge!

Cindy finished her sign for the Gnome Home.

Buddy got into the act with his tree art hangings.

What is this little creature?

We've been picking peas daily. Catherine experiences the peacefulness of shelling them.

We are getting so many a day! But it won't be much longer. It's already insane that we could have peas this late, but we're not complaining. I even flash froze some for later.

Rick brought over some gravel to make a little french drain for the hose bib. This keeps it much cleaner and nicer.

This is integrated pest management. Although this pea shows signs of some sort of insect hatching out (notice the egg sacs), it also has a baby ladybug (center bottom), ready to eat the newly hatched bugs. The peas in row 8 are absolutely covered in ladybugs.

Tiled Bikeway

They finally finished the tiled bike path between Annie's Glen and Bidwell Park. The tilework looks wonderful. And while I was checking it out, I saw at least 20 bicyclists go through, so it certainly is useful. This is the approach from the Annie's Glen side.

Close up of the Welcome sign.

This is Rick's piece, modeled on leaves from our oak.

Here's Titus's snail. I never did find Catherine's mole-pher, and couldn't remember anyone else's piece. Find yours and show me!

I went all the way through without seeing mine, and thought maybe it broke or just didn't get used. Then I finally found it, way on the outside. 

It's on the wall leading from Bidwell Park to Annie's Glen. 

Here's the Annie's Glen Welcome sign..

Ok, so what does this have to do with the farm? Well, it was an Amberglen project so it counts... But meanwhile, back at the farm... the guys are standing around drinking beer. What a surprise!

Maybe they were resting from their efforts, because Rick C. researched the spotting we were seeing on the potato leaves, and said it was possibly a nasty blight. We went to work and dug up all the potatoes, and disposed of the leaves. We did get a nice crop of baby new potatoes. Unfortunately, we also threw away a lot of potential potatoes, but better to sacrifice some harvest than get a blight that will also affect our tomatoes and peppers.

Cindy has been having so much fun with the Gnome Home. She made a lovely wreath.

And this wonderful broom

She looks pretty mischievous!

I couldn't remember if I posted pix of the teapot/kettle combination, but here's one just to be sure. Aren't they too cute?

Raining Peas

Well not exactly, but... on Thursday it was raining and we had peas. It wasn't raining when we first went to the farm, although Buddy and Rick eye the sky apprehensively. Notice that we're still wearing coats and hats in late May.

We had ample reason to be wary. We sat out the worst of the rain in the playhouse.

Bleah! Where are our warm summer days?

It almost looks like peas are growing from the tomato plant. We've planted them pretty close together, counting on the peas to finish before the tomatoes get big.

Rick checks the growth. These Black Cherries are quite tall and vigorous, despite the cool weather.

And every plant is setting fruit.

The peas are just lovely. This is the inside of a fully formed Paso. The peas are tiny, but utterly delicious.

We've been shelling and eating them daily.