The 2 day heat wave passed. Saturday brought us cooler temps (mid 80s), and loads of happy holiday customers enjoying a long leisurely holiday weekend.

We are working on stocking the shop and filling some wholesale orders.

One of our generous and talented friends brought us a gift bag stuffed full
Of homemade yummies!! One side benefit of our job is knowing a lot of amazing crafty, creative, generous people that make and do amazing things.

Part of a wholesale order... More to make Tuesday!

What a gorgeous sunny day!!

Got some peppermint put in the still.

Donna worked her tailfeathers off today!!! Did very major trimming back of HUGE weeds... Giant ragweed and out-of-control wild plums. We had cut down many, MANY overgrown plum bushes last fall, and left them
In big piles. Now they needed to be taken care of, so we wrassled them into big piles and attempted, with some success, to burn them.

Peter rested.

As did the canines.

All right. We are almost done planting for the spring. (yes, I know its summer now. But, that's how we roll).

Here goes:
6 cauliflower
22 peppers (what the heck was I thinking?)
3 basil
5 cabbage
2 broccoli
3 parsley
6 celery
8 sorrel (red)
6 lbs taters
I cucumber
I zucchini
1 yellow squash
3 watermelon
8 lemon verbena
16 white sage
11 Rosemary
3 Thai basil
16 tomatoes
1 tarragon
1 oregano
1 thyme
Onions
Shallots
4 tomatillos
60 strawberry plants
62 red rasp starts
14 lemongrass
Green beans
1 butternut squash
1 sage
2 fennel
1 dill
2 catnip
2 blackberry bushes

5 blueberry bushes and a few mint plants yet to tuck in the ground, and I really should get more basil.

Sunny Sunday

Check out this funky echinacea cultivar!

I...cannot remember the name of this plant just now. But it's supposed to be a decent dye plant, and grows prolifically.

Flax is so pretty!

Donna's awesome deck planters. LOVE the old teapot with funky succulent!

Harvested some lavender today.

A plant's eye view of our shop.

Donna vanquished many thistles today.

See her standing victorious over the slain bodies of her foes!!!

THE MULBERRY HARVEST HAS BEGUN!!!! (I really like mulberries!)

They are huge, and plentiful.

Toby helped us mow today. Here we have a bit of late afternoon relaxin'.

Another picture of the lavender, because it's so pretty :) it doesnt grow well for us.... This is our entire harvest for 2011.

After another HUGE morning downpour, we once again deemed it too wet to do much outdoors. That's ok... We had a busy day helping customers in the shop, filling a couple of wholesale orders, and trying to fill the shelves.

Veggies are enjoying the rain though.

I've never grown any brassicas, but these (heavily discounted clearance) veggie plants tempted me to try :)

And I'm I'n love with this beautiful plant! I don't know much about it. I believe it's called red sorrel, or blood sorrel? I'm
Not even sure if it's a perennial, or if I eat it like regular sorrel. But it's just so pretty I had to get it.

I was supposed to post this last night but ran out of steam.

Finally, a bit of sunshine!! The butterfly milkweed has begin to bloom.

As have the daylilies....

And the wild yarrow.

We were finally able to run the still, and distilled a gallon of comfrey hydrosol.

We started cleaning out the drying shed...a raccoon or possum got in there this winter and made a HUGE mess.

It broke open out stash of dozens of bags of packing peanuts. It's a Very Big Mess.

Donna channeled her inner firebug and we burned the HUGE pile of brush that's been sitting there, drying. It's mostly wild plum and mulberry wood. Keeping some of the wild plants under control can be quite a job.

And in the evening we went to Des Moines for good eats, good wine, and excellent live music played by Daphne Willis :)

We've been having a bit of weather here.

We had some help harvesting strawberries today.

Donnas main perennial bed continues to look amazing!!!

This color combo makes me go all swoony!

Due to weather, we didn't do anything outside. We made some things...

...and packed some orders. This photo shows our assortment of packing boxes.

We are growing potatoes vertically. Or trying to anyway. We found some round wire cages on the curb this spring (yay curb crawling!) and got a ten lb bag of seed taters at an Amish store for $3.75. We shared the taters with our friend Becky, so we probably planted 6-7 lbs in five round cages. Put cardboard under the cages to supress weeds, threw the cut up seed potatoes on top, and covered with leaves and old straw. That's it! As the potato plants grow, we add more straw or old hay. I've covered them twice do far and as you can see they are ready for another layer.

Tomatoes are doing well, we will have to think about stringing them up soon.

This ambitious little pepper plant has a pepper on it already.

BABY PEACHES!!!

The very first St. Johns Wort blossoms!

Dante is a faithful (and talkative) garden helper.

The big, icky, super-duper sweaty project today was hauling lots of very heavy barn refuse (MAN those mini horses produce a lot of manure) out to the raspberry patch. Donna weeded, and Maggie mulched. It wasn't very hot - maybe lower 80's? - but the humidity was 91 percent and the sweat was literally dripping off us. Sweaty drippy manure-covered us. That's sexy farm life for ya. There's at least another 3/4 left to do, too. Here's hoping the berries are plentiful next year!!

Today, John and Maggie vended at the Downtown DES Moines farmer's market, and had a wonderful time as always!

Donna womaned the shop, and nearly died of boredom (I think) labelling and shrink-wrapping tons of products. Note Abby, faithful canine companion.

The sweetgrass looks wonderful! Nearly ready for harvest.

And, some gratuitous kitteh cuteness. Leo is hysterical...one of two Persians living on the farm, he is so dirty we call him "pigpen" he just adores playing in water and then "helping" in the garden. He was recently adopted from the local shelter, and is an absolute sweetheart.