Harvest Monday; August 1, 2016

Visit Our Happy Acres to see everyone's Harvest Monday.
I can honestly say I visited the garden once this week. Just been a busy week for this family. Working out of town, wife was not feeling well, hot, and our oldest just bought his first house. And with that last one we spent the weekend working on his house. There was a back outside room on the house that had leaked and literally destroyed the wood. So we tore into that Saturday and finished Sunday. It was a lot of work and really miserable outside with heat indexes of 107. But it was done. He and his girlfriend are repainting and refinishing a few hardwood floors. My FiL and youngest son tore out all of the bushes in front of the house Sunday too. Luckily the house came with a new roof, HVAC unit, carpet, and hot water heater. It's a lot of work but I know they can do it. Even his Mom came and painted Sunday. And she hates painting.
OK, finishing this up at lunch today as I was beat last night. That heat really takes it out of me anymore and I really didn't want to do too much. After I got back from his house, we lounged a while as the thunderstorm took our power out for a while (always does), ate some salad, then proceeded to sweep more on the &*#! pool. Third time this year adding flocculate to it. The weather has been hard on it and everyone else's too. Got to finish sweeping it tonight (hopefully.) If it rains I'll go to the gym instead. Leg day and not really digging that!
I took a few pictures of the garden this morning before I left for work. What a mess I have in front of me. Most of the tomato plants have given up, weeds need pulled, I still haven't sowed the second bean crop or lettuce, turnips, radishes, etc.

At least the Morning Glories liked the downpour last night.

As it was this morning. Plenty of red tomatoes left!

Here's this weeks spreadsheet. Notice I caught up last week but since I didn't pick anything except a few small items I didn't put anything in for this week. 

And the construction photos. 

It doesn't look like a lot of work there but trust me it was. No WOF of the Week this week. Sorry. Good luck to everyone and their harvests. Don't be like me. 

Absolutely

a beautiful weekend. We were able to get a lot done on the homestead. Raided the big box store Saturday for some more flowers and we were off and running. After looking at our progress it was decided that 'another' bed could be put in the space between said new beds and the older ones. So my Sunday was spent building said bed, running new water lines to all of the new additions, setting out all of the drip emitters, and mulching around everything as we had a ton of the stuff left over.

I was lucky in finding the old lines pretty quickly. I also installed the valves I wanted to on each bed so I can control what gets watered when.

Strawberry blooms are coming on and we already have the makings of some berries already.

Wife's Confederate Jasmine smells great right now. 

The lettuce has really turned around so we might get some of it before it gets too hot. 

Current overall view as of yesterday evening. Just a few more thing and I'm done for a while. You can see that the potatoes have really come on now. In the new, long bed I planted Blue Lake pole beans. 

After toiling away in the garden I went out and power- washed the front porch and sidewalk to rid them of all of the pollen flying about. My sinuses can't take much more of this stuff. 

The Wife, Boy and DiL are on their way to WV for the week leaving me with two dogs, 4 fish, and a deranged cat. The cat belongs to said DiL and son, and since he's gone and she is with us, so is the cat. On his defense it's new surroundings for him. Chewie could really care less but Ginny seems to want to play and is interested in Gunner (aka: odd cat.) We think this because Ginny was brought up with cats. She doesn't chase him, just scopes him out. We'll see who lives through this week. 

Cold front moving in mid- week so hopefully that doesn't affect anything planted or I'll be covering like a madman. Hope your weekend was productive too!

Saturday Workings

I actually got the walls on the building! And I even got the facia trim boards on too. Now all that is left is the roof, siding, soffits, and the ramp for the tractor.

While at the big box store I perused the small selection of garden offerings on display. Since I never started lettuce or anything else for that matter I picked up some red and standard cabbage, iceburg and loose leaf lettuce, and some chinese cabbage.

I also picked up some onions sets, red and yellow, and a 4'-0" x 4'-0" cedar raised bed for The Wife's herb garden. I haven't put it together yet but it will be nice when it's done. 

On the growing front everything is going well; even some of the tomato seedlings I started this past weekend are coming up, some faster than others.

That's whats going on around here for this beautiful Saturday. Weather seem to be taking a turn downward towards the end of this coming week so any work that can be done outside needs to be done to get ready for all spring happenings. 

Until next time. 

Cold Spell

has hit us in the Sandhills of NC. Left for work this morning to 14 degrees. I spent Sunday afternoon covering what I could in the garden (cabbages and lettuce) hoping that they would make it through the next few days. It has been below freezing the past few days but really hit bottom last night. We aren't used to having things this cold here so it is very 'refreshing' in the mornings! I did leave the carrots uncovered as I wasn't sure how they would fair. Some are ready for picking and others are on the small side. Mostly due to the farmer as I didn't do a good job thinning them out after they came up.

 

 

 

Next on the agenda is choosing what to plant next year. Instead of onion bulbs I think I'll try some seeds and start them inside now. There's a couple varieties I want to try, Walla Walla being one of them, and I definitely want my reds. Just as long as they store well.

 

As I said in my last post I thought about contacting the power company and see if they would lease me some land and I also promised a picture. After that post I ended up on the road for four days and was just plain busy this weekend. Maybe I can ask my wife to get one today so you know I'm not lying. :) Also maybe I'll stick her with the task of contacting them about my brilliant, stolen idea. She's not doing anything now anyway.

 

On the top picture above you may be able to see the faint image of a building floor frame. I finally started the outbuilding Saturday!!!!! After screwing around at Lowes in the morning (their fault) I pretty much worked non- stop till a little after dark- thirty and beer thirty. Squeak came out and helped as much as he could but could only manage 3 posts before heading inside (no ACL tear BTW! About a month's worth of PT and he should be good!), so I did everything else by myself. That sucks when you have heavy lifting and placing to do but is also a blessing to me as I don't want to listen to other people's opinions on shit. The second (beer- thirty) I actually got yelled at whilst sitting in the garage with my boots off. I hope to continue working on it throughout the holiday weekend and at least have the walls up and roof on.

 

Saturday when clearing out the tools and trash. I told you I finished after dark.

 

 

Sunday afternoon shot after trip to see the kids.

 

 

Got to get some plastic to cover the sheeting as it is now supposed to rain the next few days.

 

That's about it this time. One thing: The Wife came out Saturday to get some pictures of me and Squeak working, with her in her pajamas. Sadly I left my phone in the truck but was able to get a couple good shots. I can't share them with you as it probably would be the last time I blogged here. They were good though.

Stay warm kids.

Harvest Monday, November 18, 2013

Well, another week has passed and we are still getting some miscellaneous items from the garden. I hope to get more all winter long if it stays mild enough. On the other hand I believe we are due for a pretty bad winter this year. Call it a gut feeling. Anyway onto the updated spreadsheet.....

And a few images of what we've been getting. 

Saturday night's supper was with our newly picked lettuce; Southwest chicken salad! Growing Buttercrunch for the first time and it is doing wonderful. 

I have been thinking a lot about next year's garden; the layout, what to grow, where to grow it, etc. One thing I can say is that we need to grow A LOT more than we grow now. It is the middle of November and we are starting to get low on some items that we put away for the winter already. We limited space in the yard I had thought about contacting the power company to see if they would 'lease' me some room under the power lines up the road from the house. It is main tension lines that have about a 60'-0" wide right of way. I have read somewhere where it is possible to ask permission to use these right of ways in exchange for say $10.00 a year lease? It's less for them to mow and upkeep and more room for me. I may choose to go this route. I'll get a picture sometime and let you see how big this right of way is. 

Kinda bland. I need some more 'something.' The building will be at the far end but I still need more out there. 

Cotton ready for picking. The Wife 'borrowed' a few stalks for her crafting enterprise/decorating. 

And on continuation of last week's happenings around here (wife lost job, boy injures self) I had an exciting Thursday evening driving up from SC. Can't say too much yet but it would be the third thing. Sometimes...................................................................

WOF of the Week. This is how evenings are spent in our house. The Wife calls it Woflandia. 

I can't say too much. I was in Woflandia yesterday. Good day for a day off from everything.

Go to Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are harvesting from their gardens this week. 

Well that's it for now kids. Hope your weeks are better than mine have been lately :)

The Rumours of My

Demise have been greatly exaggerated. I am around just not bloggy I guess. I do have some updates as I have been on the move a lot this month.

First the garden seems to be doing OK. I did visit it yesterday and removed the row covers to see what was what. Cabbage worms are trying to get my cabbage but I think I have them on the run. Finally got some carrots to set but the broccoli and leeks are nonexistent. Lettuce never came up either. Peppers still going good and I actually have some more tomatoes setting. With how this years' weather has been I am surprised any of them survived. I also have a lot of weeding to do. And I hate weeding. I did manage to get some broccoli and lettuce seeded but I'm not covering them this time. See what happens.

Another fun thing last weekend was my yearly trip to Olde Mill Golf Club in Virginia. We had a lot of fun, great weather, so- so golf.

Beside gardening this past weekend I also got around to finally painting the office. We bought this paint months ago.

 

 

As I said above I have been on the run quite a bit. Within the last few weeks (besides weekends) I am probably home 1-2 nights a week. Sunday after the golf trip I stopped at the house long enough to get cleaned up, eat, then drove to Charleston, SC that evening. 

I need to find something where I am home all of the time now. I am tired of traveling. Been doing it most of my life.
Well that's the short end of it. I will be around, just don't know when :)

Looking to Fall

Well I accomplished quite a lot this weekend in getting the fall garden going. My row covers came in so I re- planted two rows of carrots, more broccoli, red and stone head cabbage, brussel sprouts, leeks, and collards good in the field bed. I then turned cleaned out a couple of the raised beds, composted them, then planted loose leaf and mix salad blends and radishes in one of them. Some of the tomatoes are still doing fairly decent so I left them in but pulled out the eggplants and picked a lot of peppers, which will be for next Monday's harvest.

 

It was hot to say the least. I spent I know about 7 hours out there planting, weeding, and covering. All in the name of food.



One last thought today in an ode to Tami.

 

Keep the matches hidden kids.