Harvest Monday 07/01/2013

Happy Monday to everyone. Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting this week.

Have a good harvest this week which makes me happy. A lot of hard work  and bug fighting went into this one.

Harvesting the remaining potatoes and all of the onions really set it up for this week. The potatoes were ready to come out and I had already decided to do them and the onions were more of a Oh Crap we'd better get them out as a few were starting to rot off in the ground. 

With this week's harvest we officially pulled in 56 lbs. of potatoes. Not very big as some I've seen but they will be great in soup we plan on canning later.

Pulled and getting a tan. Better than those "fake bake" places on the skin I've heard. Eventually they made their way onto the back porch to dry out for the next few weeks before heading into storage and other peoples' homes. 

 

 

We were also able to pick off some tomatoes, cukes, squash, and some green beans that aren't going too crazy right now.

 

I took the two beds where the onions and potatoes were, through some cow manure in, scattered the straw and tilled everything up good. Now waiting for fall crops.

 

 

A quick garden tour.

 

Odd looking sprout off one of my maters.

 

 

Weird to see it go from one side. Never happened to me before but there's always a first time. 

 

I told you they found me. All I have been doing is scraping and scraping. 

 

I didn't think my melons were going to do anything this year but I have been proved wrong. Got to build a fence for them to go up now. 

 

That's the tour, sorry. Spent more time working and weeding than anything else. We finally did get around to making some salsa Saturday night and some pasta sauce tonight. 3 pints of salsa (medium mix and it still had bite so I may not make the hot stuff) and 4 3/4 pints of pasta which the 3/4 pint was enjoyed this evening.

 



 

Thought about planting some fruit trees around the property to get some jams and jellies too. I have really expanded the garden this year and am going to expand it some more for this fall. It's a little more work but not as much as I had thought it would be. I have most of my seeds, with a few that I need to get started for transplants, so I am hoping for continued success this fall. Broccoli, asparagus, cabbage, lettuce, brussel sprouts, and turnips to name a few. Probably looking at around the end of July/mid- August for those to go in.

 

This week: 108.96 lbs.

YTD: 146.7 lbs.

 

Good luck to everyone!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Half Way Done

Well summer is here and now we are on the downwards slide to fall and *gasp* winter. I know it's coming and I am not looking forward to it. Weather patterns so far this year have been somewhat on the cool side for us and a lot more rain that what we usually get for this time of year. Not that I am complaining too much as I have watered only 2 days all year. So far. Forecast has a chance of rain everyday for the next 6 days. The garden and lawn seem to love it. Just keep away the downpours and we'll be alright.

Cruised the garden this afternoon and I found a few interesting things.

Dug up a red onion. Still not ready.

Romas. They have been ripening a few at a time. I will get about 4-6 every other day. 

Finally got a few cukes to grow. 

Squash is a squash. Actually getting a few off of them this year. 

Brandywine Pink. My favorite tomatoes and I have my eye on this one!

Okra bed. Slow going but it is going. 

These are the Youngest Boy tomatoes. 

Two rows of potatoes came out this afternoon. I wanted to see how they were doing and they actually started getting sprouts. Next weekend the other 4 rows come out. 

Today's harvest of potatoes. Not big but they'll do. I haven't weighed them yet and will do that tomorrow. 

Yesterday's and today's gathering of peppers, tomatoes, & green beans.

Full report of this past weeks' harvest tomorrow.

On another note we have one of those multi- purpose copiers, fax machine, printer, scanner things. Well one of those storms rolled through and cut the power off for a while. Now the main screen on the machine is pretty much illegible to us and we don't know how to turn it back. 

Do svidaniya! comrades. 

TD Suburban Farm Update

Well all is well here on the TD Suburban Farm. Humid as all get out but well as can be expected. Played 18 this morning in sweltering humidity. I hit it well for the limited playing time I get but it's really not that much fun continually wiping sweat and swatting gnats. Nice course if you're ever by. Came home with a good headache and backache. Cool shower, pills and lunch took care of that though.

Suitably rested I decided to tackle some garden chores; Tieing up the tomatoes some more and weeding. If you don't stay on top of them, they'll branch out and take over! But I can say that we have fruit on every one.

Cruised by the peppers and they are exceeding my expectations. They aren't growing tall again this year but are setting peppers left and right. 

Okra planted not too long ago is coming up nicely as are the two cukes. Plated them 6 days ago and I am surprised that the rain we've have didn't wash them away. May have washed away my carrots though. 

Found the beginnings of squash bugs on my squash and probably beetles on my green beans so it's a trip to the store tomorrow. 

April 21st to today.

Watching Moonraker now so a little more, another shower, then off to bed. 

Don't let the squash bugs bite.

Sunday's Work

Finished up everything I wanted to get done on Sunday, even got my golf in :)

I removed all of the pea plants as they were pretty well done. In their place I planted two more cuke plants (seeds actually), some carrots, and some okra. I never have grown okra before so we'll see how this goes.

As you can faintly see from the picture above, I moved the fencing from the pea bed to the bed where my dying cukes are at. I added the landscape fabric to each side, in hopes of blocking some sun. I even  took some soil samples.

PH a little acidic. Nitrogen and Phosphorus pretty much non- existent. Potash in adequate range. Do a little research on this. 

Here's an overall shot of the bed area after I got all of the mulch down. 

It did rain last night and today with a little cooler temperatures. That for some reason gave me a migraine this morning. Felt decent when I got up but then took a big nosedive. Stayed home and I now can see out of both eyes now. Couldn't at 9:00 am. 

Happy Sundays

Well for the most part. Sunday mornings are a lazy, TV home- improvement watching type morning for us, but since our shows aren't on I thought I'd do an update as to what transpired here yesterday. It was indeed a busy day for me.

Every once in a while a mood strikes, one that says "well, you'd better get off your rump and so some things that you've been putting off." So yesterday started off with a workout, then I washed the truck and The Wife's jeep (just in time for the rain later today I guess.) Then it was brushing the Chewman as he can create so much fur right now we could take the excess and start a clothing line of shawls. Then I washed both dogs and put them on the back porch to dry off for a while. Went to the garden and cut and tied on the tomatoes for about an hour or so. I did this in my workout shirt which is sleeveless. More on this later.
Lunchtime came so I stopped for two small pieces of leftover pizza and a bottle of water. Showered and hit the big box store for those last 5 bags of mulch and some casters (more on this later too.) Got back and decoded to knock another item off of my 'to do' list. The Wife has been wanting a couple more paper carts she uses for her scrapbooking and seeing that I had this monstrosity of a table/stand I made moons ago. OK, maybe it wasn't that long ago but it sure seems like it. I decided to reuse it for these carts since I no longer had a need for this thing (a thought I found out later was wrong.) So without further ado....

I turned this:

Into these:

A hard plastic case sits down inside of it and she can roll them around to wherever she wants. I touched up the paint late last night so they look a little better than what is shown. And thanks to the guys building the houses across the street, I used one of the four dumpsters to deposit the excess materials. A fair trade for all of the crap that blows into our yard from them. That's one off of the list. 

Supper called so I ate a small one and rested a bit. The Wife came out and picked the remaining peas as they were going south (no pun intended) pretty quick due to the immediate hot weather we got. I got the purchased mulch and finished off the last bed and all of the paths around the beds. That's another one off of the list. Then I decided to jump on the mower and cut the grass as it was a little higher than I thought it was. Then back to the garage to do the paint touch-up on the carts. All said and done I probably stopped for a total of 1 1/2 hours yesterday, putting in a good 11 hours of work. I was beat at bedtime. 

Well here's the garden tour of Saturday, June 1st, 2013. I know you were waiting on baited- breath. 

The beans are still going pretty good along their redneck fence. Hope to get a lot this year. 

In case you can't read these are Eva Purple Balls. I first grew these last year and they are probably one of my favorites now.

I believe these are Beefsteaks. 

Squash, eggplant and I believe a cantaloupe. 

Rutgers. First year for these so we'll see how they do. 

This is a German Queen. Love the shape. 

Green bell peppers have come along and decided to set. 

All peppers seems to like the weather so far. Not too big yet but they weren't that big last year either. 

Told you the peas were done. They get ripped out today and I will probably start more cucumbers here and maybe some carrots. I have some problems with my cukes this year as you'll see below. 

A few strawberries. I didn't expect much from them this year. Nice to munch on while I work though.

Overall view. Seems a lot bigger than when I started earlier this year. Still no corn and I don't think I'll mess with it. A lot of room for one ear at a time. 

These are the cukes I mentioned. They just seems to be drying up. I water as recommended but it is tough to get them to do anything. Maybe if I put up a sunscreen on each side? 

Poor dogs. The WOF just lays in a corner watching the yard while Chewman sits at the door looking sad. He would bark about every five minutes. One bark as if to say "Hey, you guys left a dog out here!"

After my gardening work yesterday and unbeknownst to me until shower time last night, I now have bright red circles beyond my usual farmer's tan on my shoulder blades. And they hurt.

 Well the wind is picking up and that means rain is on the way, which means my late afternoon golf is not going to happen. I told myself I was getting out more this year and now that seems like a joke. Off to put some fertilizer down (either 10-10-10 or some fish emulsion) around all of the plants and let Mother Nature water it in for me, tear out the peas and plant cukes and carrots, finish weed eating (I stopped at dark last night), clean up some, workout, then if the rain passes us by, GOLF. Almost my favorite four letter word. 

Late breaking news here. Since the wind has picked up, it brings forth an unusual sound from our back porch ceiling. The wind catches the soffit just right and it sounds as if we have a moose in heat outside. Listen to the very beginning of the clip. It lasts for about 4 seconds then stops. If it is really windy, it starts, stops, starts, stops. Only we would have this sound.