These photos were taken July 8th mostly from the farm in Watkins.  The cabbage was grown in Denver).

Comfrey Bocking 4 root cuttings the spring after planting, they have really grown the past few weeks.  They are over 6 inches tall at this point.  Coe’s recommended letting them grow one year and then moving them.  I think they recommend planting them somewhere where you can make sure they stay moist.  I smile at that thought because moving them will probably still leave some roots here which will grow into plants again.

 

Sheet Mulched Potato Patch with Flowers.  This was taken July 8th 2014 of this years potato patch.  A few onions were planted with the potatoes as well.  Benefits of planting these on top of cardboard is that the picking of the potatoes should be easy since they should be above the cardboard.

Cabbage Planted last year that overwintered and came back better than last year since it is bug free.  The aphids really did damage to the cabbage last year.  For some reason there are no aphids this year.  A couple of thoughts for less aphids: the great number of lady bugs I’ve seen every where including the garden in the city, or maybe having Comfrey planted between and around the cabbage.  Good bugs like comfrey like to overwinter in Comfrey so maybe that has helped as well.

2014 the year of the lady bug in Colorado.  I’ve been seeing lady bugs everywhere this year.  Is it all the rain we’ve had?  I’ve noticed them at all three properties.

2014 Food Forest Swale with cover crops including sunflowers, common vetch and clovers. I am going to add quite a bit of straw to help cover the soil. The common vetch has purple flowers and they attracted a larger bumble bee.

Sunflower seed head before bloom July 2014. Sunflowers were planted as a productive cover crop for the new swale. The animals should enjoy them and some will surely reseed for next year.

Common Vetch with purple flowers which the bumble bee checked out.

watered when planted. 2014 has been a great year for rain. Again this week a lot of rain fell. Enough for the neighbors field to have very large ponds again.

I weeded another row of Asparagus today and noticed some with seed pods balls on them. And this plant had an orange bug which looked like a lady bug but it was solid orange.