Fava Beans, Fava bean soup, Berries and Sun Flowers.

We had Fava bean soup for supper tonight, it was great. Everything in the soup except the onions and Tomato's were from the garden.

There are lots of Berries coming along. Red black berries, Raspberries and Blue berries. We will have to put screen over them to keep the birds away. the Sun Flowers are getting big and will need to be staked before long.

We are going to plant more things tomorrow. The Farmer told the new farmer and the farmers daughter that we are to decide what to plant and where. We can handle that.

Good eating until the next time

Fava Beans, Fennel and Shelling Beans as a Farmer Family

Today we pulled up all the Fava Bean plants and brought in the beans. We have had a much better harvest then in previous years. The Fava plants will be going into the compost pile.
Fava beans are very large pods. The pods have to be shelled and the number of beans that you get are much less.We all worked together to shell the pods and collect the beans.
More than half the weight of the beans was the pods and even with these the Farmer's Family will have to blanch these and take off the outer shell. The Farmer plans a  special meal with these Fava Beans for supper tomorrow night.

Also the Fennel plants are ready. The first was harvested yesterday and then another was harvested today for the New Farmer. If you are not familiar with fennel it has a licorice or anise flavor.
The Farmer made a delicious salad with fennel, sugar snaps and these great carrots form the garden and the bac choi.  
Here is the salad and here is some nabeathean scallions.
I have a lot of weight to add this week.

10.060 KG of produce to add this week for total of 34.814 KG which is 76.60 lbs.

Compost,, Carbonerra, and Lettuce

   The Suburban Farmer and his family have lots of produce and then we also have a lot of green waste, trimmings and plant matter that we can compost.
The Suburban Farmer has been composting for some time. This week the Farmer's Wife and the Farmer made a screen and screened the compost for some and now we have some great soil enrichment for all the plants that are growing.
Some of the produce includes this beautiful lettuce.
Here is some Pac Choi and type of Chinese greens.
If it is possible to have to many sugar snap peas this year it may be true for the Farmer. Many friends and colleagues at work are benefiting from the natures largess.  
The Farmer has found some wonderful bacon that is perfect for making Pasta Carbonerra that is enriched with all the vegetables.
Here are some of the beans and fennel that are benefiting from all this compost.

There 1.843 KG in just the last 4 days to be added 24.754 means we have 26.597KG total.

I did not get any pictures but we harvested 849 gram of veggies.

I got rocket, lettuce, radishes, collards, snap peas, beet greens,Yum, Yum. We went to the farmers market to pick up some things we don't have yet. Won't be long and we will have all we can eat in our garden.

We planted egg plant and the farmer and farmer's wife are working on the water drip system. Not suppose to have rain this week.

Sign off until the next time.

Orange Beets and Carrots and Poppy

Several years ago the Farmer tried to grow the Asiatic Poppy which in some varieties is the source of pain medication. This plant is meant to be grown in more arid conditions and each year there have been fewer plants and this year only one remains and it bloomed this week.

The year the Farmer tried two kinds of beets. One which is the traditional red and the second is the orange color with lighter leaves.  Will let you know how they taste later.
This year the Farmer is having more success with carrots. They are supposed to be this light orange color and are on a bed of sugar snap peas.
The tomatoes plants are almost a foot tall and with the warmer weather will start to grow even more quickly.
These are the wonderful radishes that I have been enjoying. The Farmer has another crop planted.  
Baby Farmers have come to pick peas this week. Peas will be harvested probably for another 2-3 weeks. Then the Farmer has planned for there to be beans to be harvested.
 

3,997 KG of harvest to added to the total which gives the Farmer 24.754KG which is 54.45lbs  The Farmer is 20lbs ahead of the weight in produce at this time last year.

Spring Runs Hot and Cold.

This last week there has been terrible destruction in Alabama with some horrific tornadoes. These storms came very near to the garden but there was no damage here, but in other places old strong oaks, houses and many structures were turned upside down and destroyed.
Today I have pictures of some of the most delicate and beautiful of plants that we have in the garden. This is the time when sugar snap peas come with their beautiful green foliage and then the most beautiful white flowers. They must be night pollinators because white shows up so well at night.
Also the handsome fava beans are growing and this year I will have a few more pods. but still not as many as I think the should. I think that there must be some special insect that we don't have to pollinate the flowers that are so many in number.
Every day I pick about one half a pound of strawberries from the very few plants that we have. Also lettuce is coming in and every night we have 3-4 things to eat from the garden.

Here I have fennel plants that are wonderfully beautiful.

2.780 KG to add for total of 20.757KG this is close to 50lbs already.