Very nice Eloise!!...I planted potatoes for the first time this year...We'll see how it turns out :)

Enjoyed looking at the pic's, you must have a beautiful garden, congrats on your first havest of potatoes and garlic, Ellen

Your potatoes are awesome. I am jealous of your cardoon and avocados :) I have such problems with fungus on the avocado trees I've gotten here that I finally gave up. My little cardoon did good until it started raining everyday and getting really humid then kapoot lol.
LOve your little 'Chicky' she's sooo cute!! My babies that I hatched out at the beginning of the year have just all started laying eggs. So far I have very dark chocolate eggs from the French Marans and blue eggs from the Ameraucanas. I have some other kinds of pullets including some Easter Eggers that should start laying soon too. Fresh eggs are the best!!

Eloise
evrything looks Beautiful, you busy Girl, I have a few things in Bloom, but nothing like what you have, I do have 1 yellow pepper that needs too be picked, great job

Elizabeth

Everything looks great Eloise! Isn't veggie growing fun, lol. I grew potatoes this year for the first time since I had some sprouting in the closet, lol. John thought I said they were tomato plants and I went out to check on them one day thinking they were close to being ready to harvest and they were gone. I said where are my potato plants and he said you mean the tomatoes? They looked half dead so I yanked them out, lol. I found some of the potatoes but without knowing right where the plant was I couldn't find the second one, lol. He replanted it with some other things so I couldn't dig the whole thing up. Used a kiddie pool for a veggie garden this year with holes poked in the bottom. It worked pretty well, lol. I am so jealous of your grapefruit tree. Mine is just a baby, lol.

Hey Eloise, I am planting garlic and potatoes too but I never harvest my potatoes. I never knew when is time to do it and after the leaves are gone I forget where I planted them but I'll start doing it know. Back in Romania we used to eat green garlic same way like green onion. Green garlic is not that strong like a garlic clove.
Beautiful garden you have.

Pat

Great picture I really loved your Iochroma.I ordered some from Kartuz but DH forgot to tell me they got here and left them in the car for 3 DAYS!! plenty of heat no water, so they were no good I did planted them hoping but NO it was too late.

I love that Cardoon bloom! I sure enjoyed browsing through your album...how do you ever go inside?

Pam

Cardoons! I used to find them wild in NJ and batter and fry the stems. My boyfriend's Italian mother taught me that and they were yummy!
Great gardens Eloise, enjoying your successes.

Thanks all. I was extremely excited harvesting my potatoes and garlic being that it was the first time growing them!

Kristy and Pat, you need to put a sign up where you plant your potatoes, LOL! I planted them in a black box so there's no way I would not find them.

Lenette, you can't imagine how often I think about your baby chicks and have to stop myself from going to get some. Of course, I know they don't carry the Marans (want, want, want), but I can always get the Rhode Island Reds, and the Ameraucanas. I can't have roosters so don't hatch eggs. Before I went on vacation, someone was offering Maran hens, but I couldn't get them then :-(

Diane, I grow cardoon for the looks, but hope Karyn reads your post. She has asked me several times if I harvest the stems.

Marcie, oh I bet you were upset when you found your order! I was gone out of state and found one of my small iochromas pretty dried up. I cut a bit off yesterday and saw some green so maybe it will survive. It is a red one that I got at a plant sale and has not bloomed yet

Eloise, if you ever decide you want to incubate some fertile eggs lol, I am going to be setting up breeding pens in this coming month for the blue and black copper marans.... you could always rehome the males. I get rid of my extra roos at the local chicken swaps or on craigslist. I don't have the heart to eat them lol.
The lady I got my blue marans from had her birds (the parents of my blues) photographs in the recent issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine. They are nice birds.

Here is a link that might be useful: Marans

Everything looks great, El! How'd the potatoes taste? Really good, I'm guessing. That passie on the GF tree is unbelievable!
Lenette, thanks for the chicken link. Really cool! Makes me wish we could have some. :)

Theresa

Theresa, I haven't had potatoes yet, but maybe today for breakfast. Can you believe all that passionflower fruit!!! The funny thing is that I have rarely seen the flowers. I believe it's a p. caerulea or something close.

Lenette, thanks again for the offer of Maran eggs. I'll think about it especially since I would have to buy a brooder. Wow, you have a star, or at least a relative of a star (poultry mag)!! Here we are only a few days from when I said "I stop myself from" going to buy chicks, well I caved in. I bought two barred rock and two Ameraucana altho the brooder said they are Araucana which I doubt. I have them in the laundryroom in a large bird cage until they get big enough to put in the coop.

I loved looking thru your album!!! Nothing better than fresh home grown!!! YUMMY

Awesome! Eloise got chickens nananana LOL!!! Congrats they are so cute when they are little. Be sure to keep a red brooder lamp on them while they are young to keep them warm and toasty. I'm sure you prob. already know that.
I have 2 Barred Rock girls and 1 baby Easter Egger (EE) (thats hatchery for thier Ameraucanans/araucana). I had 2 EE's but the white one died :(( so now I only have 1. I am hoping to get lots of different colors of eggs. Those two breeds are so friendly!

I have one pure blue Ameraucana who thinks she is a lap chicken-loves to sit on my lap and snuggle and have me pet her. She will put her head on my shoulder and go to sleep. OMG!! I have to pry her off of me when I want to leave her pen and she still cries at the fence for me to come back in and hold her LOL.

No will power here when it comes to baby chicks! So far so good; the chickies are growing quickly. My 3 y.o. GD wanted to spend the night just so she could be near the chicks! Lenette, don't recall if you've had your chicks over 5 months and wondering if they have started laying for you. I handle the chicks everyday hoping they will get used to it, but they still try to get away.

Oh, I bet your GD is loving those babies!! Did I tell you I got 5 baby guinea keets? That is a whole new can of worms, they are wild hyper things compared to the chickens.

Yep some of mine are laying. My blue and black copper marans are laying.. and so far the Rhode Island Reds and one of my Golden Comets are laying from my hatchery chicks.
In fact, I 'set' one of my blue copper girl's (Bella) first 4 eggs 21 days ago in my incubator so I could get some 4th of July babies and last night 2 hatched and 2 more are hatching now. OMG they are sooo small because they were Bella's first eggs and pullet eggs are usually smaller than full grown hens. Plus, I had stuck those eggs in the fridge because I wasn't gonna hatch them- but I got some more of the solid blue marans eggs shipped to me from that same lady I got my original blue coppers from, so I went ahead and put them in with those lol. I'm shocked that they hatched after being refrigerated and being her first eggs.