Instead of writing my blog, much of my time right now is spend in the garden. With almost half an acre to cover, there is a lot to do.
For the first time this year we have created a little kitchen garden, squared off with willow fencing that we found in the catalog of National Gardening, this way the deer cannot come in and it also gives the garden a sort of a French look.
After an online search I found seed of my favorite 'spitskool' called Jersey Wakefield in english, a cone shaped cabbage that I've never found here, not even on the Farmer's markets. In Holland it is a very commonly used type of cabbage, very tender, great in Asian stir fry dishes. There are about 12 of them growing and I intend to plant some more later in the season. Because the kitchen garden was put in fairly late in the season I had started my tomatoes inside and then transplanted them to an Earthbox planter, a type of selfwatering planter that I'm trying out. It works excellent, the first green tomatoes are ripening. In the other Earthbox I have I planted 'Frisee' a curly endive, but that has been harvested by now (excellent!) The rest of my seedlings are all still small, but they look promising. Lots of compost have been worked into the soil and I regularly water them with compost tea.
The peach tree that I photographed in bloom for the last blog, now has several ripening peaches, that is a first time!
And while we were making long (but enjoyable) hours in the garden, we had the company of lots of birds. There were three breeds of Robins, the last two flew out the day before yesterday. A breed of wrens in a bright green ceramic birdhouse and a second breed of them is on the way. After they flew out and we cleaned out their nest they came back (at least that is what I think, I cannot tell one wren from the other) and started all over again. Apparently they don't like 'used furniture', experience has taught us that. They will sit and sing and try to get our attention untill we clean out their house, after that they start building a new one within the hour! Here are some pictures of our winged kids....
