Harvest Monday; November 13, 2016

Happy Harvest Monday to everyone.

Spent some time in the garden this afternoon. Used the air compressor to blow out all of the water lines to the beds, pulled the bell pepper and hot pepper plants, which now only leaves turnips in the ground. Still getting a few good ones here and there and surprisingly got four green peppers when I pulled the plants.

Looking pretty barren now. I don't plan on any new plantings until spring next year.

This bed was empty next to the onion bed so I tossed a few of the onions in it that were less than desirable. So they proceed to take off. Hope they turn out good next year. 

My green pepper harvest. I believe I will save one of them to get seeds for next year. I don't have great success saving pepper seeds, averaging about a 25% germination rate.

Someone's been in my turnip patch. My FiL comes over and grabs some every now and then.

Our male dog, Chewy, had surgery on his upper left leg this past week and I brought him home Thursday evening. The vet said that it was cancerous growth on his leg so we decided to go with the surgery hoping for the best. After it was over she said she wasn't able to get all of it as it intertwined with his muscle. We are sure it will be back. It has been a struggle with him the whole weekend. His gait is that of a bulldog so his twisting walk- motion hurts him when he tries to move around. His next appointment is tomorrow so we will see what the vet says. He was 6 years old when we adopted him and he's been with us for 4 years. He is a sweet, kind canine with no mean bones in him and it does bother us when he suffers. In hindsight we aren't sure our direction was the best. If it does re-appear I don't think we'll elect surgery, letting him live out his days pain- free. 

The other WOF in the house, as well as the cat, has been worried. She did pose for me Sunday so here's the WOF of the Week. Harvest Mondays are hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. 

Harvest Monday; October 17, 2016

Happy Harvest Monday. Cruise on over to Dave's site, Our Happy Acres for all Harvest Monday posts.
Contrary to popular opinion yes I am still around. Seems like anything that can come does come up. Been busy on other projects which means the garden has suffered. In my last post a month ago I was hoping to get some cabbage in but that didn't happen. I visited the garden this past Friday (and once before on the 26th of June) since last post and things weren't as bad as I thought they would be. Turnips came in strong and the mystery disease on the bell peppers seems to have gone away on most of the plants. Actually got a decent harvest of bell peppers and some turnips that will be cooked this week. Probably freeze the peppers. Let's take a tour.

Updated figures. Pales in comparison to last year.

I did some seed saving on the marigolds Sunday and plan on getting more seeds collected before years' end. 

Not real happy to see this Carpenter Bee cruising around but he/she is doing their job all the same. 

With the dire situation a lot of the bee population is currently facing, we need to do what we can to enlarge their habitat and garden responsibly. It is against the homeowner's covenants to have bees where we live but I may just do it anyway. I am considering mason bees as well as a hive or two of honey bees. 

Marigold Seed Saving 

Find the dead- looking ones.

Pull them out like you are deadheading them.

Pull the top off and there are the seeds. I got a lot of them saved into envelopes.

I also have more that are getting ready to bloom.

Pulled a few turnips out for meals this week. 

Part of the bell pepper harvest. 

As I know everyone is aware, Hurricane Matthew headed up the east coast last weekend and made a turn into North Carolina, our current home state. It started at our house Saturday morning and didn't let up till Sunday afternoon. We live about 120 to 150 miles from the coast so the wind speeds weren't hurricane- force but they were strong enough to topple a lot of trees. We did have a lot, I mean a lot of rain. It washed out a lot of the roads near us and people lost power for 2-5 days. Surprisingly we lost power for only about 5 hours Saturday. Usually we are the first to lose and the last to regain. People east of us towards the coast were dealing with flooding all week last week and are now cleaning up. Not a real fun time for all.

That's it for me for now. Happy Gardening.

Harvest Monday; September 12, 2016

Yes, made it back. Been a busy few weeks around here. Put the post up from our 2nd vacation day and I put our 3rd day up this past Saturday. But we are here for Harvest Monday. All Harvest Mondays can be found at Our Happy Acres.
Did a big clean- up this weekend. I let weeds overrun all of the beds, the tomatoes died off, and the marigolds have taken over. That in itself has been the best investment. Probably $5.00 invested. I got a few bell peppers and a lot of banana peppers picked this week.

The before and after shots. Man it was a chore to get those weeds out. Hope to plant some cabbages.

Hot peppers that are certainly colorful. My wife is going to take some to work with her for one of her coworkers. I am going to use some in my salsa. Have to buy some romas at the farmers' market though. Sad day here when tomatoes run out. 

Marigolds.

I planted some turnips a few weeks ago along with some cabbage seeds but the cabbage did not start. So my idea was to plant out the bed with turnips. Good idea if I had the seed to plant. 

Well that's all I got for now. Happy Harvesting. 

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. 

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.

I'm Here

Yes I am still around so you can stop breathing a sigh of relief. Just been really busy these last few weeks. Weekend before last we headed back to WV to get Squeak and attend the Wife's High School reunion. Sadly not too many people showed up for the formal event and much less showed up for the Saturday morning golf match. Myself and a friend of mine actually joined this group and in total we had 7. Pretty bad but with today's social media and the like it is easy to keep in touch with people nowadays. Miss WV. Funny thing is Amy and I were talking on the way back Sunday, spending the $400 million lottery that we were going to win, and I told her that I'd just go buy a farm over in Pocahontas County, next to the mountains. 200 acres with a house in the middle or towards the back of the property where no one from the road could see it. Just hide away and putter around my days. Well, I am still here so that means I didn't win.

Well I finally broke down and submitted my plans to the Harnett County planning department so I could get my building permit for the storage building I need to build. First thing I had to do is show the location of the building, the property lines, then dig up the lid on the septic tank so they could inspect it. Yes you heard right (saw right.) A nice little BS trip they do here. Septic tank inspection before anything can be done on your property. Another $100.00 wasted. 

Squeak and I played paintball this past Saturday as he was having withdrawals but we only made it for about 2 hours or so. Man it was hot and humid. So we spent the rest of the day on the couch watching movies and eating stuff. Wifey was at the beach.

Sunday I got pissed off and ripped out the green beans and tilled everything up. I planted turnips and cabbages that I had started. Still have some more items to get going but I need to get my hands on a ow cover to help the seeds start on the carrots, etc. Anyone know where to get one that would be local? This coming weekend most of the remaining tomato plants are coming out, water lines plugged off and beds turned over. I am pretty much had it with this growing year for summer crops. 

There's a new show to us that we have started watching and I find that it has a lot of good information in it. It's called Growing a Greener World and it is on Saturday mornings where I'm at. We DVR it to watch early Sunday morning. The last episode I saw was about controlling pests organically in the garden. I am seriously considering this next year. Anything to help. Here's a link to that episode. 

We had a good picking of peppers this week but I never weighed them out for Harvest Monday so I'll put them in next week's. 

That's it except ole TD has some news of a different nature (no I didn't win the lottery, seriously.) I am still putting some things together and I hope to get everything done for this coming Saturday. Let's just say that I am adopted. 

Until next time Grow a Greener World kids.

Harvest Monday 07/29/13

Harvest Monday. Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what everyone is getting this week.

The Wife and I went to the Farmer's Market Saturday. Sadly we ended up buying tomatoes there and came home to can and can. Boy they were nice, big Romas. We ended up with another 12 pints of pasta sauce and 11 pints of salsa. With the state of the garden this year due to the all of the rain we had to do more to store away for the winter. But it seemed that the main growers around the area were having just as much trouble as we were. Beans are somewhat of a scarcity too, even on our half acre.

Spent the better part of Sunday out in the garden cleaning, weeding, and pulling. I ended up pulling out 6 tomato plants total. Shame but that's the type of year it's been. But I did get a surprise that I wasn't expecting.

A cucumber! Few and far between this year. Peppers? Have those. 

Flowers have finally started looking good in the sunshine.

Had some help when I was plowing up the big patch for fall planting. Just stopped by and hung around for a while. No collar or anything. We were going to take it to a vet but it was gone later in the evening. I did get some turnips and mustard planted in the plot and have a bunch more starting in their pots. 

Not a big harvest this week but it is slowing down this time of year. 5.85 lbs. 

Hope to have more later this week. Had migraine all day and computer about dead.