HollyHedge Keeps Growing

We started this growing season with good planning and pretty good luck. The spring rains were plentiful, often teetering on excessive. Despite some loss to wetness, we still managed a good harvest.

The spring garden was planted with leeks, peas... turnips & cabbages... & fennel... all ending up in the kitchen & on plates. In addition, this year we also experimented with onion sets, spinach & arugula.

Crowns of asparagus planted 2 years prior, offered their first delicious spears in May (asparagus requires a year or two to get established before harvesting). Our summer plantings, however, encountered quite the set back. Although fending off the critters is an annual struggle, this year was a particularly disheartening one. Cat birds feasted on blueberries despite our netting. Groundhogs & rabbits devoured our peas despite our fences & row cover. Pumpkins, squash, beans, broccoli raab, broccoli & parsley fell victim. Even hot pepper plants felt the sharp tooth of the hungry rodent. This certainly reinforced the idea that a diverse garden improves the chances of a successful garden.
While blueberries were eaten, our raspberry crop was beautiful. Though we haven't a single pumpkin plant left, the tomatoes have once again yielded more than the chefs could imagine. Even the cucumbers managed to inundate out baskets for a few weeks. Garlic continues to prove to be unpalatable to our garden fauna. Many herbs also seem to harbor those essential oils that rabbits just don't care for. And as of now, we have a promising apple crop hanging in the orchard.
Much of our summer successes also heavily relied upon our watering system; the rains didn't seem to frequent us as much as they did in the spring. Saying it was dry is an understatement. Each year, we seek to manage & refine our watering system, striving for efficiency and resourcefulness. Negotiating an irrigation system is plenty of work, and involves maintaining a balance between what is coming out of the ground and what is going back into the ground.

Ben finds himself watering each bed as it is needed & having the sustainable resource at hand to do so. We like to keep in mind that, in a way, the water the garden demands is the same water that offers showers at the inn, washes dishes after a wedding, or simply quenches our thirst.
Though on hot dry days, dragging water lines around is nothing short of hard work, we rejoice in what the sun offers. This July, our solar panels have provided our biggest solar output to date & we've just harvested grapes that thrive under abundant sun.

Summer Crops

The spring heat carried through into the summer months. Excessive hot weather usually means watering is inevitable. Calculated irrigation & mulch played a key role in keeping our plants healthy & prolific.This summer, like the summer before, we grew our staple crops... heirloom & cherry tomatoes... zucchini, eggplant, jalapenos & herbs in addition to a few new vegetables... tomatillos, purple string beans & a medley of hot peppers. (Visit Cross Country Nurseries, a great local farm that specializes in hot pepper plants.)The cucumbers were especially prolific, so we made pickles, relishes and, of course, used them fresh.There was a lot of excitement over the Asian Pear tree this year. Not only did it bear fruit, we managed to keep the squirrels from getting to it & earned a beautiful harvest!Mid-July also brought us chicks. In an attempt to help supply the kitchen with eggs for breakfast, we rescued 2 chicks from a shelter and bought 6 more locally. Fric, Frac, Sally, Lola, Cecelia, Corrina, Eleanor & Roxanne are all growing up, their first eggs expected late fall.

Lastly, our edible flower project has been going well. Short of a wedding or two, we managed to supply the kitchen with enough edible flowers for each dinner or salad plate.

Flower Gardens

This year, we planted a cutting garden with the hopes of providing plenty of flowers for the inn. Despite the excessive rain this year, the garden did well. And it even managed to survive the first frost, so we had flowers from June through the end of October. Even a few in November...

... zinnias, nasturtium, & alyssum ...... sunflowers (Keeping the bees happy) ...... cosmos & salvia ...... lisianthus, ageratum & rudbeckia ...... cleomi & huge sunflowers ...And in October, while harvesting the pumpkins, we cut some of the Kong Sunflower heads to collect seed for birds!

Fall in the Gardens

The arrival of fall marks many changes in the gardens. Pumpkins, gourds, and flowers are harvested for decoration, inlcuding goldenrod from out new meadows. The last of the kitchen crops are picked before the first frost, just in time for soups and stews.With the harvest complete, there is still time for planting before the ground freezes. New blueberry beds are dug and planted. Twelve evergreen trees are also planted; that's almost 50 trees in the past two years.

Flowers!

The summer sun has finally come around and stayed. With it came the summer flowers. The first substantial cutting made for our first home-grown table arrangements.The first collection of nasturtium, an edible flower, made its way to the kitchen, and then to the table on plates.And the vegetable garden seems to be kicking in, yielding zucchini, beans, and the beginning of the tomatoes. The blueberry bushes and raspberry canes are also putting plenty forth.Lastly, the herb garden (and over-flow garden) has been supplementing the kitchens needs.

Baskets of Bounty

After a summer of experimenting, we had learned a lot and even plenty to show for our work.
Fresh grapes...
... picked...then pressed to make our first-ever wine!
Hoards of gourds!!
Trellised swan (goose) gourds...
Mini gourds...And bottleneck gourds...And a variety of tomatoes...