June 6, 2009 - How does your garden grow

                                 Our ever expanding vegetable garden

                                                       Signs of life in our little vineyard

                                                Blueberries

                                               First tomatoes

                                                      Sour cherries

                               Target practice with dad

                         Artisan perfected

 

                        Just one of the "locals" out for his daily stroll in the front yard

                         Cole & the Neuton

   May flew by like the wind and June arrived with a chill.  In the early morning hours of June 1st we hit 32 degrees, needless to say several of my young tomato plants appear not to have liked the cold night, despite being covered.  Otherwise as you can see our garden is fully planted but seems to be expanding weekly and is now 50 feet x 30 feet.  We have added several more varieties of mint, 4 high bush blueberries, a sour cherry tree and discovered under a field of weeds 3 beautiful rhubarb plants.  Our grape vines have also finally started growing.  We were worried after several years of neglect by the previous property owners and a serious pruning by us late last fall that they weren't going to do much this year.  Patience is the key with the vine.  They were oozing and waiting for just the right warmer nighttime temps to get going for the season.  This weekend we'll be adding currants, black, red & white to our ever expanding homestead.   

    In other news the kids and I took a field trip to the planetarium in Concord and the kids finished school this week, as of Monday they'll be on "summer schedule."  This means only about 1 hour of school per day, plus reading.   We're all ready for summer break and when we've had enough of the heat we usually bring it indoors mid-August and get rolling again, plus does learning really ever stop?   The kids start swim team in just a few weeks (once the school kids are finished for the year) and Nikki is riding again this summer.  In riding news, Nikki jumped ChaChing over the pole on her own this week - in jumping position.  She is also posting quite nicely and is learning tack this year.  Cole turned 9 at the beginning of May and is excited that we're finally allowing him to mow the grass.  He's using our new Neuton mower -  this is an environmentally friendly rechargeable lawn mower made by DR right here in NH.  With all the grass we have it does take us two days to mow the whole lawn but who wants to do 1.5+ acre of grass with hills in one day anyway?   The best part is that it is quiet and safe for  Cole to use (George and I of course jump in when he's had enough).  Cole has also been squeezing in lots of target practice with George and recently acquired a new Browning  hunting bow which he's anxious to try out soon.  

        I have been baking (I have finally perfected my artisan bread initial scoring, P for our last name & e for Erin ), gardening and knitting of late,  knitting two summer sun dresses to be exact.  Yes my lovely shawl has again been hibernating in my knit bag.   I just felt the need to knit something that screams summer, a sun dress for Nikki was just the ticket.  The top is finished and I am almost done with the bottom.  By the time it's actually 75 degrees here (a few more weeks) it will be ready for her to wear.    On George's front, he's been putting in lots of gardening time with me as well as doing several projects around the house, more ceiling fans, gutters for the front of the house,  planning our veg. garden fence to keep the deer and turkeys out and this weekend plans to install a new screen door on the basement mud room and hook up the rain barrel water collection system we purchased in early May :-)  

        How does your garden grow?   Post your comments below and in the meantime smell the flowers and watch summer begin all around you - Erin