Assassin Bug!

We are really lucky having all of these beneficial insects in our garden. This is what happens when you don't indiscriminately spray pesticides in your garden. You get a healthy ecosystem that polices itself. Check out the bean leaf beetle (Cerotoma trifurcata) lunch this assassin bug found. You can see the damage this garden pest does.

Blue Tomatoes and Mrs Clawfingers

These are OSU Blue tomatoes. They were developed by Jim Myers Ph.D, who holds the Baggett-Frazier Endowed Chair of Vegetable Breeding and Genetics in the Department of Horticulture at Oregon State University. That's a mouthful. They are very good, according to Dara. They turn more of a dark purple almost black when exposed to direct sunlight.

I almost "picked" this green pole bean, then I noticed the segmented abdomen and realized I had found Mrs Bitey Clawfingers. Hopefully her and Mr Clawfingers will get busy this year and have tons of baby Clawfingers. 

One of ours?

Not really sure if this is one of our bees, but every time I see a honey bee in the garden I like to think so. Bees absolutely love onion flowers. If you ever see your onions going to flower let them go and enjoy all the beneficial insects they bring in. 

The bees are really filling up the hive. I can't wait till spring to try some of that honey!

Our first kohlrabi!

Dara cooked a kohlrabi casserole with the first ever kohlrabi to come out of the garden. It was delicious! I need to plant some more of these soon for a fall harvest. 

Homestead Update

Its been a while since I walked the property and took pictures. Here a few images from around the yard and garden. These pics were taken with my cell phone so I apologize for the poor quality. I find if I take pics with the cell phone I do more posts because its easier. It's a trade off.

In the center are our beach roses "rosa rugosa". The purple / pink are the flowers and the red you see are the rose hips. These roses produce one of the largest rose hips of all roses, full of vitamin C.

Here is whats left of our corn. A squirrel came in the day after I planted and dug up close to half of the corn I planted. Squirrel season starts Sept 1st, my corn should be ready towards the middle of Sept..... squirrel corn stew?

I planted over a hundred pole beans yesterday. The left row is a green bean and the right row is scarlet runner bean. We plan on canning a bunch in Sept.

Here is the compost / raised bed / volunteer plant nursery. We got our first ripe tomatoes of the year from volunteers that came up in the compost pile. The raised bed in the foreground has spinach, various herbs and okra planted in it. 

Here are my cascade hops. I was very busy with school when these came up in the early spring. I did not string them up right away so they did not grow to their potential this season. 

Once you plant borage you never need to plant again. Half of this raised bed is full of beautiful blue flowering borage. The flowers are so good. I eat a handful everyday I am in the garden.

This is the horseradish. It is doing very well. I want to split and move half of it to another location in the garden soon. I dug some up earlier this year, the flavor is amazing!

We still have 6-7 heads of cabbage getting bigger and bigger. I just planted a variety that gets up to 10 pound heads.

Here are some peppers. The peppers I start from seed always start out slow but once they hit the heat of summer they go crazy. 

All the stakes along the fence have a tomato I started from seed staked up to it. The tall sunflower looking plants on the right are Jerusalem artichokes. I can't wait to harvest them in the fall.

Here is the asparagus patch. I have been very good and have only eaten one spear over the last two years. This coming spring will be year three and we will be enjoying fresh asparagus for a few weeks.

Here is a shot of the garden. I finally got all the straw down after a storm coming in and blowing my hard work all over the yard.

I have upgraded the arrow target. The round bale was to short and we lost a couple arrows over the top. 

Busy Bees

Here is a short video of our bee colony. They have almost filled the hive with honey and brood comb. After they make it through the winter I plan on raising a new queen and splitting the hive in the spring.  

Bitey ClawFingers

I saw dozens of mantises in the garden this weekend. I did some research out of curiosity and found out that this is a European mantis, "Mantis religiosa" of the insect Order "Mantodea" which consists of approximately 2,300 described species. These were originally introduces to the Americas in 1899 on a shipment of nursery plants. They have now spread far and wide and are available through mail order as a form of organic pest control. Mantis are carnivorous and will only eat meat that they have caught themselves. Some of the larger species have been known to prey on small scorpions, lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, fish, and even rodents. I think they look cool and am glad they are patrolling my garden. This is a male, the females are green. His name is Bitey ClawFingers. It goes without saying...... Dara named him.