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. 

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. 

Getting Ready For Fall

Started a bunch of seeds last night. Broccoli, brussel sprouts, and some cabbage. Trying to get a jump on them for the fall garden. I still have a few more to start. Ground planting will be carrots, spinach, lettuce, leeks, mustard, and turnips. Probably looking at mid August before actually getting the planting started. Seem now that summer has found us and it's been getting hotter. Thankfully though we have rain this evening so we will avoid the impending drought.

Went to the store today and lucked into three celebrity hybrid tomato plants. Not a big fan of hybrids but had to take what I could. I didn't take any pictures as I didn't stay outside too long today. Did the plantings, power washed the back deck and that was it. I will leave you this evening with this, our mailbox planting we did at the beginning of spring.

Death

Not your common way to start a post but I believe I have found a way to kill those #!*&%! squash bugs! Went out to the garden Thursday evening as it was not raining (insert joke here) and found that they had consumed my watermelon, a lot of the tomatoes, and were starting on the cantaloupe and Eggplant. Went inside and came back out with a spray bottle of Dawn and water mixture and proceeded to spray everything and every bug I saw. Went back out Saturday to see what is salvageable from this summer's garden and not one bug in sight. Gone. Dead. They r u n n o f t. I don't remember the scent of Dawn I used but it was about 1/3 Dawn and 2/3 water. Worked like a charm. Next year it will be floating covers and a lot more attention paid to the crops.
I am actually surprised at some of the plants. The tomatoes look like they had been through war with no stems on the bottom parts but the tops have blooms on them. Go figure. And fruit is still setting! I did lose five plants and replaced three with some Early Girl's and need to run to Home Depot to see if they have anymore. Images of the devastation.

 

What else can be said. With the rain we've had I am surprised I've done as well as I have. And guess what? Rain is no less than a 40% chance until next Tuesday. I did mow though. :) Off to the store. and more this evening.



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.



One Down

Finally got one almost completely out of the house. Rented a Uhaul trailer and moved them and their stuff to their new apartment. A lot of stuff but thankfully he had help lined up when we got there in the form of two of his military buddies. They made light work of the stuff saving olde TD's back mostly. All in all they seem pretty well settled in and their apartment is nice as well. Oh to be young and starting off in life. Someone said that  they wished they had a time machine to use to go back in time and change things that they wished they'd did differently. I don't think so. That's part of the journey, good and bad.

Rain, rain, rain. That's all it does anymore. I finally broke down and mowed the yard this afternoon, and of course it started raining again. The last time I mowed was June 27th. I honestly believe it has rained everyday since then, save Saturday the 6th when we weren't in town. I just set the mower on the highest setting and went to town. The grass was so high it still tried to clog up the mower. Will hit the yard again tomorrow if there's no rain. Not counting on it though.

On the garden front everything is in shambles. I believe the plants are downing. Those that aren't are being attacked by squash bugs. Sad thing is I haven't been able to do much about the bugs because of THE RAIN. Hopefully get that taken care of tomorrow too. The Roma's are just about done so I picked up some Early Girls to put in their place for the rest of the year. It looks like we have green beans to pick and Amy harvested more tomatoes earlier in the week so we've been canning fools. I'll have pictures of this for Harvest Monday. In the mean time I think I'll take a break and enjoy some peaceful TV time with my British comedies.

Harvest Monday

Made it back to NC this evening from a four day weekend in WV. Had a big reception for the kids and of course it rained. Hell, it rained on us on the way home today. Busy, busy, busy we were. Helped finish off a bathroom remodel, landscaped two garden beds, mowed, picked up fallen tree pieces, seems like everything to be ready for the party.

And the river was up and muddy.

All in all a good trip. I hope to have more pictures soon as being as busy as we were I didn't have time to take some myself. It down poured literally an hour before the party started if that gives you an idea.

Squeak and I did a harvest the 1st and another one on the 3rd because we weren't going to be around for a while, and The Wife and I did when we got back in town. We got a lot of tomatoes this time around, even taking some to WV for the in-laws.

I highlighted the past weeks' harvest days. 67lbs. of tomatoes. Not too bad. Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see what everyone else is harvesting this week. 

Pretty tired so going to eat something then head to bed.

More later....



A Somewhat 4th and a Great 3rd

OK. The fourth of July didn't see too many fireworks probably due to the rain but I did get the chance to catch up with an old friend that I don't get to see that often. Sad to say but we are the type that don't phone too much so it is what it is. It was good to see him and I will be seeing him again several times before I have to drag my ass back to NC. I miss the hills here for sure but you have to go where the work is.

Great 3rd.

I am honored and privileged to welcome to TD's family Miss Karin. The Oldest Boy, Bubby, made a great choice in a young lady. All before she met the extended family no doubt. Wedding ceremony was short but not without love of these two young ones and we hope only for the best. Oh to be young again.

I truly hope everyone has a safe, happy time on their trip as we are having on ours.

Stay safe out there kids and kiss the one you love!

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!