Harvest Monday; May 29, 2017

Memorial Day. A time to reflect on those that have made the sacrifice for our country. I am forever grateful.

Well harvest-wise we got a few more strawberries but they are starting to die down now. We'll cut any remaining flowers off, clean up the bed, and mulch them. I am still considering transplanting them. We'll see.

Amy and I did a lot of work in the garden and her flower beds Saturday. It was a long, hot day to be sure. I got the remaining tomato plants in the ground, weeded the upper field where they went in, threw up some cages that I had, watered everything in real good (still have to run drip line up there), transplanted some marigolds between the plants, planted 3 more rows of green beans, did a little weeding on a few of the beds, finished the mulch around her flower bed, and opened the pool up, which turns out survived winter really well. All it needed was sweeping, a few chemicals added and we were off and running.

Aforementioned pool. It was very clear when we took the cover off.

I put this post in the marigold bed and Amy hung a couple of hummingbird feeders on it.

This was at the end of a long Saturday. Summer is definitely here. 

One of the three green bean beds I started a few weeks ago. Those are Copra onions in the long beds behind them. First time for those. 

Looking north.

And looking south. Still a lot to do. 

WOF Dog Farms at its finest. Looking at this reminds me to get the light post done. Sigh....

My son and I drug out the telescope this past weekend as he hasn't had the chance to view the moon through it yet. These are what we got from our driveway. It wasn't completely dark obviously and I like to view the moon during first or last quarter. Good shots with the phone though. 

I spent Sunday morning helping my oldest son put some new belts on his lawn tractor. Took us a while as we replaced all three and it's not exactly the easiest thing to work on. I come home about 2 in the afternoon to this. Amy floating in her pool. I'll say this, my wife loves her pool. 

"What are you guys doing out there?"

I changed my book on the main page as I finished it and also read another book named Hillbilly Elegy. It wasn't the longest but interesting if you know people from Appalachia. Family on my mother's side are similar to those hillbillies but not quite the same. Still half- crazy though. Worthy read if you have the time. I believe I am now going to read Vikings; Raiders, Traders and Masters of the Sea. I seem to be on a history kick and the Viking Age in particular interests me. I will cruise Barnes and Noble near my office for sale books, and yes, I buy books. I like turning pages instead of looking at a screen. :/ 

That's it for now. Dave of Our Happy Acres is host to all Harvest Mondays. 

Harvest Monday; May 22, 2017

Happy Harvest Monday. Go to Our Happy Acres to see all Harvest Mondays.
Slim pickings so far this year as strawberries have been our only harvest.

Been moving slowly this year getting things planted. Really slow. I usually have everything plated and ready by tax day, but between sickness, being worn out, and just blah its been hard to get anything done. I did get a lot of planting done this weekend as well as weeding all of the beds. I still have a few more tomatoes to put in the ground, start some eggplant, and run the water lines. I am planting all of the tomatoes in the upper field this year and am going to run the water line out of a bed that I am not using this year except for flowers. At the end of this year I plan on tearing out all of the beds and redoing them with block. The wood beds have finally worn out and are falling down. OK, enough about my problems. :)

Strawberries are even growing out of their bed. I have a plan of trying to transplant them into a long, skinny bed that I can net around.

I told Amy that we should just be marigold farmers. This is one of the beds I'm not planting out this year and volunteer marigolds have come up. 

Even got a morning glory mixed in there. 

Nice picture of Amy's flower bed. We still have a little mulch to put down.

This weeks' harvest. We grow June Bearing strawberries here as they seem to do well in our climate.

Quitting after a hot day.

WOF of the Week.

The cat loves the bags from our Sunday morning grocery shopping trips. 

Harvest Monday; April 17, 2017

Happy Harvest Monday to everyone. Dave of Our Happy Acres hosts all Harvest Mondays.

No harvests again this week but hopefully soon.I just like to see what everyone else is doing in their gardens this week. It was a busy weekend for the homestead as all kinds of work was accomplished. Powerwashed the front porch and painted, mulched the front, sides, and rear flower beds, turned over the garden beds (most of them), and planted out some tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and peppers.

Strawberries. Looks like we'll have a good harvest this year.

Peach trees are blooming out and setting. Surprised with the late frost we had.

Speaking of frost bit. Apple tress didn't fare too well.

Wife's barn quilt for our little building.

Spread some peat moss and black kow over the tilled area and worked it in. Did the same thing on some of the raised beds. 

Mulching around the front of the house.

Painted front porch.

Getting a good drink. 

We picked up a used 6" Meade reflector telescope Saturday as my son has been hinting about one. I had an 8" before we moved to NC so I had an idea of what to look for. We took it to a small tree farm just down the road from the house and did a little start gazing. Here's a picture of Jupiter and its moons.

That's about it for this time. Not much written content until things start coming in. Until next time.

Harvest Monday; March 27, 2017

No harvests to speak of. I never planned on growing anything over the winter and with our schedules I never saw the benefit of trying anything this spring. This doesn't mean that I've given up. I do have some spinach plants started that I hope to have in the ground next weekend along with some onion starts maybe. I say maybe as I've never had any luck starting onions from seed. In the mean time I have transplanted my Roma starts and as of last night transplanted the remaining tomatoes starts I have. Off the top of my head we are growing: Roma, Solar Flare, Better Boy, Mortgage Lifter, Box Car Willie, Rutgers, Grape, Rainbow, Katja, and Red Pear that I got from Seeds of Italy. Except for the Better Boy seeds, the remaining tomatoes are from my saved seed. Pretty happy about that. The Red Pear is a new try this year, based from Italian seeds. Interesting to see how they grow. I also bought some onion and flower seeds from them. Here's a link: Seeds of Italy.

Peppers are another story. I have great germination of bell peppers but nothing else. I meant to start more last night after the tomato work but was just too tired to get that done. Maybe tonight. 

See what I mean. Two rows of peppers out of the whole tray, sans a Cayenne pepper plant. I watered them really good last night and will give them a few days to make an appearance then it begins again.

Overall view of the growing stand. The onion starts are on top. 

WOF of the Week. The cat makes her first appearance in WotW. She lives the back porch. 

Short and boring, just like me :) Honestly, I'm not that short. Anyway check out other Harvests and people actually growing and harvesting things at Dave's site, Our Happy Acres. 

March It Is

With the weather from a few weeks ago it seemed summer had arrived in February, but alas now we are back down to where we should be. 60s daytime highs and 40s at night. Still not too bad but it does kind of suck after you get 3-4 days of 80. So into March we go.
I haven't really had anything to post for Harvest Mondays so I don't link on Dave's blog as of yet. We are hoping for a good harvest this year so I am going to really concentrate on proper feeding and soil composition. I know this should always be done and I do it at times but with our schedules its hard to really get it done. I have already started a tray of roma tomatoes, peppers (which still haven't come up), onions and flowers. I hope to get everything else planted this weekend. Well, it has to be done this coming weekend or I'll never get anything in the ground this year. I like to do my main garden planting Easter weekend. It would be nice to try to get some stuff started in the evenings but when I get home from work, we eat and socialize for a time, clean kitchen, then I go change and hit the gym. By the time I get back from the gym it's bedtime. Thinking of going back to morning gym routine.
Well enough of me rambling.

Romas you say? Yes and for a while I didn't think these things would germinate but they did. This is 2 year old seeds I used. And I got my soil block maker out for a run.

Princess Leia had to go on her first vet trip and wasn't really happy about it. 

But she does have her favorite blanket at home!

WOF of the week. Meal prep Sundays. This is THE Official food tester. Got to make sure that chicken, steak, eggs, etc. are safe for consumption. May take a few pieces to be sure. 

HappY Mondays!

Hey everyone, happy Monday!
Finally did some work in the garden yesterday, setting everything up for spring plantings. I weeded out all of the beds except for the strawberry bed and 2 others where the wiregrass has literally taken over so much that nothing will be able to grow in them. I have a lot of work replacing those two plus rebuilding the rest as they are all starting to fall apart. Add that to the stuff my wife wants done. Anyway after meal prepping in the morning and a short nap, here's what I did.

This is the elephant garlic that I thought was a dud purchase from Amazon.

Weeded out the volunteer onion bed. Speaking of onions, I did start some from seed but they aren't doing too well. I must be the only gardener that can't grow onions. 

Overall view of a nice, sunny day. I'll be tilling up the ground right in front of me for tomatoes this year, giving the raised beds a year off from them and cucumber and peppers. 

As I said above I have started the onions and that's it. I believe I'll start the spinach and peppers next weekend. Tomatoes, etc will have to wait until first week of March. And with the new planting season, my son's girlfriend bought herself a good- sized greenhouse that we helped put up last weekend. I finally have someone near me that gardens too. 

On the exercise front everything is going good; haven't hurt myself in a while *crossing fingers, knocking on wood.* Still meal prep

And I have an awesome gym photo here for you.

Yes, that's my feet. As I said everything is going good but mid section being a little stubborn. 

Finally WOF of the Week. Until next time. 

Hello to 2017 & To You This New Year

Hello and a late welcome to 2017. Ole TD here has been a busy bee since last post in November (yes November) so I wanted to catch you up on what's happening.
Seed catalogs: I have a lot of them, ranging from Baker Creek to Territorial Seed. I even have some from businesses I've never heard of. They may be good companies and I did peruse the catalogs but? I don't know. I am making my final seed list after this post though! Gotta get moving.
Garden planning: Yes, I probably should do this before the item above but as usual I will will come up with a basic plan and switch it up on planting day. And on a side note, the raised beds are starting to fall apart so there needs to be repairs or replacements happening this spring. They have built a few new houses in our neighborhood and I am eying the extra block left. Need to find out what they are going to do with it. I am definitely rebuilding with block no matter what. If I can't get it I'll keep my eye on CL or the Restore.
Facebook: I had an account on FB for some time and recently my wife and myself just decided to deactivate them. Tired of all the hassle and mess and idiots on it. I did start one for tossing dirt a while back and didn't do too much with it. I did a few updates on it this evening and plan on using it for my gardening, hiking, golf, etc. stuff. Check it out.
Chewy: We sadly lost our buddy on January 12th. We had previously decided that if the cancer came back we'd let him live out his life as best he could. It came back a lot faster and more aggressive than I had anticipated. I was out of town the day it happened so Amy had to deal with it by herself. He's not in pain anymore and we are happy about that. Our other dog and cat do miss him like all of us do.
Posts: Well with my Facebook dismissal I am aspiring to post more here. I'm not sure about the audience for bloggers anymore but hope to keep it strong.
Off to finalize my seed list!