40 and 30 year old trees come down!!

The day before yesterday and yesterday Daddy took down two 40 and 30 year old pine trees to clear our view out to the field! The first one tipped the other way than we expected it too, so Daddy finally pulled it down with our van (thanks to Uncle Dwight for the idea!) The second one came down a lot easier. Here are some pictures:
Cutting off the branches of the 40 year old one (number one.)


Here's the tree and the stump.



Here's the 40 year stump. This tree had growth spurts in its 20s.


And the trunk.



Ambrose has a go at cutting off the branches!


Hmmm... What next?





Here's the 30 year old one (number two.)


And here's the 30 year old trunk!


A view of both trunks and stumps.

Fair Weekend

Here are the results for the fair veggies!

Daddy's tomatoes took first place!


My corn took second place!


My beans took second place!


Daddy's carrots, 2 tomatoes and cucumbers and my corn and beans and tomato took second place all together!

Update Way Overdue 8-24-10

The garden has been left to its own devices for three weeks, because we were busy fixing up rooms upstairs in our house. Now that we've done the more important stuff, attention to the garden is returning! The harvest is coming in, one day I picked 90 tomatoes with my aunt, and at least 60 beans. I also picked some corn. Earlier we picked around 30 cucumbers, with more coming in each week. I also picked some 20 carrots yesterday. They are really good.

Here are some pictures:

Here are the tomatoes, corn, cucumbers and carrots.

Here are the biggest tomatoes and beans.

Here is another view of the wheelbarrow.

Update 6-28-10

Lots of rain here - it pours almost every other day. :) We already have gotten 1.02 more than the average this month! We're getting tomatoes, radishes, lettuce and peas. We are also getting a lot of nice flowers. Zinnias, roses, begonias, petunias, geraniums, verbena, lillies and marigolds. Mama is growing an herb garden - sage, fennel, cilantro, parsley, marjoram, thyme and rosemary.
Here are our pea plants. We picked at least 20 today.


Lettuce, carrots, beets and more peas at the back.


Here are our yellow lillies we planted last year. We got ten more this year.


Daddy's row of salad tomatoes. I have some baby Homesteads - hamburger tomatoes ;) - but they're not ripe yet.


Ambrose's zinnia. We got some more fencing up today; more pictures later.

Irrigation System

I am putting together an irrigation system for our gardens here at Saxonbourg Greens. For now we have a timer that controls four separate sprinkler valves. I put together a manifold that connects a hose from our well tank. The hose connects through a series of fittings and water from the hose flows into several tee pieces and an elbow. Then the water will go up some risers and into the valves. The valve, when closed, will not let the water through. When the timer sends an electrical charge to one of the valves, the valve will open, letting the water through into a buried poly-tube. Poly-tube is a black plastic poly-fiber tube used for irrigation purposes. Our tube is 1" wide. We will bury it 18 inches deep so that it will not freeze during the winter. As the water courses through the tube, it will encounter several tees with a riser connected to a sprayer. The sprayer and all the others will water the garden as long as the timer sends the electricity to the valve. As soon as the timer stops sending electricity to the valve, the valve closes, the sprinklers fade and stop. Then the timer can send a new electrical charge to another valve, watering a new zone.
Here is the timer. I hooked the cables up from the valves on the right side.


The timer and the hose from the well tank. I used an old dryer exhaust pipe to lead the cords and hose through the basement wall. ;)


Here is the valve manifold with the first test sprinkler hooked up.


Hurrah! It works!


From a greater distance. We haven't buried any piping yet, but are putting in systems to be timed while we go on vacation. Eventually everything will be in place and we can continue adding more sprinklers and zones.

First Day of Summer Tomato!

Four days ago, on Monday night, June 21, the first day of summer, we picked our first tomato!
Ready for picking in the afternoon.


Picked at 8:30 pm! It was a good tomato.

Update Overdue 6-14-10

We finally have been getting some warmer weather this month and the flowers have started blooming. We have gotten quite a few seedlings in now, and half the tomatoes are also in. Daddy planted his cucumbers yesterday. We've been eating lettuce, spinach, asparagus and radishes from the garden now.
Our red rose bloomed yesterday!


Another bloom.


This is a purple-pink petunia of Stella's. It's supposedly miniature.


And here is a purple veined petunia.


This rose flower is as large as a normal rose; but the plant itself is tiny compared to a normal rose.


Here's the Sweet William Opa gave us.


Another Sweet William.


And another.

This one decided to send out two different color flowers.


Orange marigold in the cold frame!


Yellow marigold!


Here is a tiger lilly. It gives a really nice bloom.


This is a wildflower, possibly a weed. We call it indian paintbrush even though it isn't.

Here is a flowering tree we have in our yard. It looks like the flowers are mini snapdragons.

Baby apple!!

Baby tomato!

Here's one of our irises. They are really happy this year. In fact, alot of plants were really happy this year.

We planted some strawberries - and now we have a baby one!

Daddy's carrot rows. Ambrose planted them and managed to fit 1000 seeds into 3 or 4 rows.

Here's Daddy's lettuce. We already have been eating alot for salad.

Daddy's beets!

Here is the first flower I've had on one of my new raspberry canes.

Another iris picture.

I put in a couple of window boxes up on our barn windows facing the road. I planted verbena and geraniums in them and Stella planted some petunias in them.

The other box.

A verbena flower.

Powerbud!