Lake Country Land School Blog: garden tour with photos

So it has been an exceptional year for the garden, and not in a good way. Wet. Wet. Wet. And cool. Like we have not seen before. I took these pictures to document what the garden looked like on the Solstice. We have done a lot of planting in the last weeks, but there is much more to do. We have a big group of Junior High students coming this week to help us finish planting, weeding and mulching.

We start our tour in the greenhouse. There are literally thousands of broccoli family plants getting ready to go in the garden for fall harvest.

Athena melons - ready to plant this week for harvest in September.

Basil and Parsley for early fall harvest.

Round two of sweet corn - ready to plant this week - assuming it dries out.

Now we left the greenhouse and see the tree in the farmstead yard, loaded with apples.

There are a few plums coming too.

Fall raspberries - thriving in the wet weather.

Now we are in the garden by the farmhouse. This patch of flowers was planted by Class C the first week in June. They will be mulched and weeded this week.

On the left side of the garden (east), the first two beds have leeks. MORE leeks than we have ever grown before. This week we mulch.

The garlic is looking great. Slow compared to last year. But, hopefully ready by July 20th!

South of the garlic, the rest of the garden is still swampy and unplanted and full of volunteer lawn grass. Our goal if it dries out is to plant a lot of carrots, turnips, radishes, and beets there for fall harvest.

Recent plantings of lettuce, carrots, soybeans, radishes, cilantro, dill, lettuce. We hope they come up through the packed mud that came after the last rain.

Hops. Planted into our first complete "Hugelkultur" bed near the derelict corn crib.

We planted some tomatoes in the little greenhouse. We hope to have some ready sometime during August. Who knows?

Now we are walking to the Homestead and the big fields. On the way, we pass another patch of raspberries.

Here is our first crop of blueberries from plants put in 3 years ago.

Here are the blueberry plants. We are attempting to protect then using wire cages.

Here is the hoophouse. Notice: 1. no plastic yet - we are switching it out this year. 2. no tomatoes and peppers - we are taking a year or more off to interrupt disease cycles (we will plant fall salad crops there). 3. lots of green plants. Those are lamb's quarters, a weed in the spinach family that we have been eating in absence of success with cultivated plants.

The little herb garden by the Homestead. Planted by GRS students this year.

Hey! Those are the hardy kiwi plants we planted last year. Alive!

Tree swallow chicks in the birdhouse by the Homestead - installed by Class E students this Spring and immediately occupied.

Miles and Grace prepping for our new back patio!

Yay!

This week we install the pavers in the patio.

Here's what the pavers look like.

The Liberty apple trees behind the Homestead will have their first apples this year.

Cucumbers and zucchini - planted in the big field. The "plastic" is actually a biodegradable film that will warm the soil. This week we mulch between the beds.