Tag Archives: garden

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the bounty from the labors of the cosmos organicos garden collective.

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the bounty from the labors of the cosmos organicos garden collective. I.

we’ve had an employee garden at organic valley for years and have mostly small mountains of garlic for the past few years.

this year we joined forces with other gardeners and dubbed ourselves the cosmos organicos garden collective and have about 12 active beds that contain all manner of Good Things – garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, toooooons of salad greens, onions, broccoli, squash, tomatillos and on and on and on. it’s been a lot of fun working with five other wise and industrious green thumbs to keep on top of the chores. in the end it’s been less work than “going it alone” as we’ve done in the past. i think we’ll definitely continue on as part of the group effort next year. who knows maybe we’ll continue to grow and eventually the entire space will be managed by the collective 🙂

in the background, you can see the work being done on headquarters after the fire.

the bounty from the labors of the cosmos organicos garden collective. II.

here’s the view from the other end of the garden. i wish i could figure out how to take the close up of each bed and stitch them together in a panorama to show end to end view. it’s quite a garden – the power of the collective!

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the 2013 raspberry harvest begins!

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the 2013 raspberry harvest begins! I.

they’re a little delayed this year because of the cool, wet spring, but the raspberries from the garden are finally coming in!

the 2013 raspberry harvest begins! II.

we picked maybe about a gallon today and it’s only the beginning. we’ll freeze most of them for winter smoothies but i’m sure we’ll enjoy them while they are in season. i am particularly fond of berries covered in organic valley half and half or heavy whipping cream.

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day 3052: preparing seed garlic for a slightly smaller, small mountain of garlic.

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day 3052: preparing seed garlic for a slightly smaller, small mountain of garlic. I.

regular readers might recall we’ve been planting and harvesting a small mountain of garlic for several years now. we usually plant around 200 cloves around this time of year in our lovely cropp crop.

it turns out that 200 head of garlic is, well, way too much for a family of three even after you factor in giving away loads of it to friends and family and what we need for seed every year. so this year, we’re scaling back and “only” planting 80 cloves in our home garden.

as always, odin is a super helper and thoroughly getting his hands dirty preparing the garlic and planting the seed.

day 3052: preparing seed garlic for a slightly smaller, small mountain of garlic. II.

experts will tell you the middle of november is way too late to plant garlic, but we’ve never had any problems because we always seem to get lucky with an unseasonably warm streak of weather. this year was no exception, right when we thought we might be too late, we got a nice warm streak of weather with predictions of gentle rain.

perfect ( excepting for what the trend might portend in terms of global warming )!

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the strawberries are coming!

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the strawberries are coming!

finally the strawberries are ready for the pickin’! we got about a gallon of them today and there are many, many more on the way. they are noticeably less bugs and slugs in the garden this year which i assume is a side benefit of The Girls pecking and scratching around the garden.

i think there are few things more enjoyable than fresh berries from the garden.

we’ll freeze most of them, but i think there is a strawberry pie or two in our future. and maybe some homemade strawberrry ice cream. and perhaps some jam.

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tending to the cropp crop.

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tending to the cropp crop. I.

the garlic we planted last fall at our employee garden at organic valley hq [1] is coming in nicely! and perhaps we even have one of the nicer looking employee plots ( inside joke. we have at times over the years had a notoriously ill kept plot. )! certainly better looking than last year when the plot was water logged.

we had enough good “seed garlic” from last years’ harvest to put in about 200 head which should yield more than enough for us to give away heaps to lucky friends and family and provide us with garlic for the year.

tending to the cropp crop. II.

it sure is a purty view out over the 8,600 acre kickapoo valley reserve. it’s hard to believe this was the view two months ago.

we need to figure out what to put in the rest of the garden plot to the left of the garlic. squash? carving pumpkins? watermelon? suggestions welcome 🙂

tending to the cropp crop. III.

looking back up at organic valley/cropp hq affords a view of the addition we’re adding ’cause we’re busting at the seams from growth.

[1] technically speaking organic valley is a brand owned by cropp cooperative which is really my employer but that’s a detail lost on most folks who just think i work for ov.

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day 2503: documenting the first harvest of asparagus!

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day 2503: documenting the first harvest of asparagus! I.

odin and i gave his mother a camera for mother’s day, but i think there’s a little confusion over just whose camera it is! but he has good instincts – when i said it was time to go pick our first harvest of asparagus from the family garden, he asked to wait a minute and ran inside and grabbed his, er, her camera 🙂

day 2503: documenting the first harvest of asparagus! II.

i’m impressed with his ability to manage the camera and the plate while composing the shot 🙂

here’ a little video he shot while picking the first harvest.

and less than 20 minutes later it was being enjoyed at the dinner table.