May Showers

Yes we have had our fair share of rain this month although the past few days have been pleasant. Today we reached a high of 65 degrees which is welcomed around here, since summers seem brutal.
Seem to have most of the garden in now. I was going to say all but I just remembered that there are a few melon seeds that need planting. Tomatoes, peppers (need a few more bells), garlic, onion, squash, and green beans are set and growing. Did some weeding this weekend to, trying to stay ahead of them this year.

Banana peppers.

Garlic and onions. 

A few tomatoes and peppers.

Long bean bed. Blue Lake bush beans.

Planted three more rows of beans in the field.

Looking healthy now. Time to do some staking. 

Poor kitten locked out on the porch. She is a premadonna for sure. 

Other than that everything seems to be moving along. Looks like we'll hopefully get the pool open next weekend, which means I need to get off my butt and get the pump set up again. Poured a small pad for it and the filter yesterday so no more concrete patio blocks!

Stay cool.

Cleaned Up

Got everything pulled out, cleaned up, tilled, fertilized, and pretty much ready for winter.

Midway through the process. Notice the bed with all the weeds? Sad to look at I know.

Looking much better now!

Did the frost get my stuff? The peppers sure felt it.

But in pulling out the plants today I found a gem hidden at the base of one of the plants. 

The Smurfs are moving back in. Seems like I get a few of these every year. 

And as it always happens, I always end up tearing up everything in my path. I tore up one of my water lines going into a bed, ripped the back plate off of the tiller, and broke the garage door opener panel. 

And to top that off I was pulled over yesterday by a town police officer. I got my truck inspected by I haven't had the chance to get my plate sticker. That's what he stopped me for. So after a few minutes he hands me my license back and tells me to have a good day. Thought I got away with it but the citation came in the mail today. $215.00!!!! Pisses me off. 

Off to get a few more things done. And when I say 'a few more things', I mean planning next year's spring crop. I have plenty of ideas. What's yours?

I leave you with The Wife's front decoration.

Harvest Monday; July 24, 2013

Well I hope to have the garden in decent shape now for the remainder of the summer. A lot of weeding, cutting, tying, etc. to make everything right in the world or at least my world. Now on to fall!

Seed saving advice: When labeling your tomatoes for seed saving later, be sure to label in a pen on your masking tape, not pencil. I now have a lot of seeds that are listed as "Big." They cam from German Johnson, German Queen, or maybe Mortgage Lifters. Who knows. All I do know is that they will be "Big" next year. Nothing like a surprise.

No pictures this week of the harvest as there really wasn't too much to pick. I did see a few more eggplant almost ready and peppers galore. Been a wonderful year for them. Here's the latest tally.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what others are getting out of their garden this week. 

Harvest Monday, July 15, 2013

Good Monday to everyone. I am happy on one front as we have no rain forecasted for the next few days, and sad on another front as the garden has either drowned or been eaten alive by squash bugs.

We did two pickings this week and canned Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon. Here's the updated totals.

Another good picking of the tomatoes this past week which means we have passed the century mark on those and now up to 119.46 lbs for the year. The plants are looking pretty bad though so there will be some changes upcoming this weekend. I have some Early Girl plants that I am putting in place of the Romas. We also got a smattering of green beans, peppers, and a big eggplant. One thing that has continued to do well are the peppers, They must love all of the rain we have been getting, which is about 9-10" above normal where we live.

 

And this is not all of the canned products we have done! Bigger stove!

 

 

 

One thing I did get this year and has been totally worth it is a new tomato processor. Not the most fancy but it works great.

 

This past Saturday after moving the kids I broke down and mowed the yard in the rain. Sunday was 10% chance so I waited until about noon and hit it again and got it looking somewhat decent. If I'd waited any longer I would have had to bail it.

 

And of course with 10% chance we still got rain. Can't eliminate squash bugs when it rains all of the time. 

 



WOF of the Week. It's been a while for these showings but I will make an effort to do them more often. Like I said we moved the kids into their new place near his base and we had an old kitchen table that Amy used for scrapbooking, one that we were giving them. We took the legs off of it and set it down in the living room until we needed it for loading. Look what we found.

 

 

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see other Harvest Mondays.

 

Until next time keep your wood down kids.



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. 

Father's Day

First, Happy Father's Day to all Dads. As I say, it's the best job around!

I was out of town Wednesday afternoon to late Friday night. There was a storm system that rolled through Thursday and to my surprise look what I found Saturday.

Tomato down! So most of my Saturday was spent tying and weeding everything in the garden. And we are finally getting some produce from our 1/2 acre. 

German Queen. Got my eye on this one!

Our haul. Lot of hot and bell peppers, a squash, few roma tomatoes, and we dug up three potato plants. Think we'll give them another week or so.

And the result from our work was stuffed peppers that evening.

Totals from the haul:

Green peppers- 3.1 lbs.

Hot peppers- 1.3 lbs. (we froze these for later)

Tomatoes- .9 lbs. 

Squash- .5 lbs.

Potatoes- 1.6 lbs.

Cucumber- .2 lbs.

Strawberries- .11 lbs. (wow)

Peas- 2.1 lbs. (from earlier harvest)

Totals YTD- 9.81 lbs

As my Father's Day gift my boys got me a new hopper for my paintball marker. So I had the idea of us getting our pictures taken in the woods near our house as we never had any good ones done before. 

We're not real menacing to be sure. 

Well one last image and it is a special one for me. This was taken on my dad's 80th birthday party a good friend of his through for him. That's ole TD and my sister. I miss him a lot.

Well off to bed as I have an odd feeling this will be a long week. Enjoy the week yourselves!

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.