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Gapeys Grub

Paula Thomas's homestead and food adventures

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Remember those potatoes I started from TPS (True Potato Seeds)? I was a little late getting some planted and they’ve been in seed starting containers a little too long and found some starting to form baby potatoes already. Decided to plant a few in a fabric pot. Can’t wait to see how big the potatoes will get.

happy #caturday! If you caught my stories last weekend you saw this cutie that hitched a ride under @maginashun’s hood. We contemplated keeping but found someone pretty quickly to take her that had a litter of kittens the same age.

Happy #flowerfriday! The peonies are in bloom, this is the majestic rose double. I've got 10 different varieties in the garden but this one has to be my favorite. I got it last year from @gilberthwild for the #plantforvictory project with @pallensmith and these are the first blooms it has put out. Do you have a favorite peony variety? Ps. Did you know peonies are edible?

One of my favorite days of the gardening season is getting the peppers in the ground. I used @migardener’s Trifecta fertilizer and egg shells in the planting holes dug with a @coronatools trowel as I usually do but am trying @plantsuccessorganics mycorrhizae for the first time this season. If you aren't familiar with mycorrhizae, it's a naturally occurring fungus that increases the plants ability to uptake water and nutrients. Just don't bother using it on your brassicas or ericaceaes as they get no benefit from mycorrhizae. I'm also using straw mulch for the first time in most of the garden. You can see my entire pepper transplanting process in the newest Y T video on 'gapeysgrub'.

It's that time of year people are finding ladybug larvae and wondering what they are. The second pic is a typical ladybug larvae and they eat more aphids than the adults. Ladybugs seem hard to come by at the stores and are more expensive than usual online so I've been hunting ladybug larvae in the front yard flower patch which is loaded with aphid infested yarrow. There's tons of ladybugs feasting on them. Yesterday I found this black and white one. I've never seen a black and white ladybug but they do exist. This black and white one is a twenty spotted ladybug (Psyllobora vigintimaculata) which are not seen as often. Thanks to @nicelyinhibited for helping get it identified. Too bad I just missed #nationalinsectday by one day.

These overwintered snapdragons seem very happy. Thanks to mom for the seeds. They come in so many colors. What’s your favorite color snapdragon?

Harvested more greens from the garden. Many of the radicchio are starting to bolt so we’ve been eating them as fast as we can. My favorite way to prepare them is grilling them and then chopping them up for a warm salad. They go great topped with toasted walnuts. Do you grow or eat radicchio? It’s a bitter green I know many aren’t fans of.

This is the biggest our spinach has ever gotten and am not positive which variety it is since I started several and scattered them around the garden bed in a random pattern. It’s most likely regiment F1. It looks like that variety can get quite large. I got the seeds in a local plant swap a few years ago and finally got around to growing them. Chopped some up and added them to a quinoa and chicken dish last night for dinner. 😋

Happy #figfriday! I have my first fig update of the season up on my channel. These are the breba figs on the takoma violet. It looks to be the most productive variety this year.

I’m not sure I ever introduced our new additions other than in stories. We picked up 3 tweens from @sabikaseattle in April. This one is a blue copper marans taken the week we got them. We also got another black copper marans and the third is possibly an olive egger. They spent a few weeks inside and the last couple weeks they’ve been getting introduced to the rest of the flock. Integration is going well and haven’t had any issues. They aren’t yet sleeping in the same coop but they spent all day together for the first time yesterday.

More flowers have started to bloom in the flower patch. We have our first lupine blooming and the yarrow is just starting too. What’s bloomed this week in your garden?

I got a couple fun varieties of calendula. One of these is bronze beauty from @floretflower and the other is from saved seeds of strawberry blonde I grew a couple years ago. They look very similar and couldn’t tell you which is which. They’re both gorgeous. I have the traditional orange and yellow varieties too that volunteered or overwintered from last season. Do you grow calendula?

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