Harvest Monday; July 6, 2015

Good Harvest Monday! Daphne's Dandelions is the host of Harvest Monday.

Going to be a quick post today as I have been feeling under the weather since Saturday and went to the doctor this morning (finally.) Not completely sure what it is but my cough was so bad Sunday that it brought me to my knees several times. Needless to say I Netflixed all day.

Here's the spreadsheet for the week. It was a good week for tomatoes and cucumbers.

Our harvest from Sunday, thanks to my wife for doing the picking. And a 1 lb. mortgage lifter tomato.

Hope to give you an update this week as to all of the other happenings around here. Sorry so short.

Happy week!

Harvest Monday; June 29, 2015

Good Monday to you. Daphne's Dandelions is the place to be for Harvest Monday.

Been gone for a while, haven't I? Well, my website got hacked by something, then I tried a few things to get it back up and running anddddddddddd I've made a mess of things and honestly don't have the time to work on it. So I'll be here for the present future until I can get the main site back up to updating, etc. Sucks because I just renewed my domain and hosting for 2 years!

Things here on the homestead are busier than anyone can imagine. My wife and I are busy at work (she's pulling in OT every week) and I have a few projects coming up that are paperwork- heavy so that's keeping me moving. She's up at 3:30 am or so and out the door by 5:30. I am up usually at 4:30 and out the door at 6:30. She beats me home by about an hour as I don't roll in until 6:30 to 6:45 pm. Reason for this explanation? Our weekends have been mostly devoted to the garden. Up at 6:00 am at the latest to beat the heat. Our harvests are ramping up and I have been managing to keep the squash bugs at bay for now. Ironically we haven't had any squash yet as the bucket idea didn't pan out. We also have lost a few tomato plants and a few of the others are having their leaves curl inward some. I have checked the soil and it was a little low nitrogen- wise so I added some blood meal. We'll see what happens. They may just be stressed as the past few weeks have really been hot with little rain. Here's an updated spreadsheet:

Yes, we are getting beans! And cucumbers. Canning like crazy in the evenings when we get time. Tonight it is salsa with the tomatoes. I kinda bunched some items on this weeks harvest but we have been keeping track of it. One item of note this past week is the taste of the Solar Flare tomato. It is a very sweet, meaty tomato and is a keeper in this house. Let me show off some pictures and I'll make another post soon to catch you up on things around the house and why I'm needing a vacation :)

Harvest from last weekend

Harvest from this weekend

Solar Flare tomato

WOF of the Week

Caught her with her tongue out

More updates coming. A lot has been going on here! Back to work. 

Making Progress or Not

Welp, didn’t get as much done as I wanted to get done this weekend. Worked like crazy Saturday until about 5:00 in the afternoon and pretty much overheated myself. Guess I’m not used to the heat yet  Got up early Sunday and started again until the rain came early in the afternoon. I managed to get all of the strawberry plants I ordered from Gurneys plated after tilling up a new area for them, planted out some sweet banana and chili peppers, weeded, planted eggplant, weeded some more, replaced some onions, mowed, burned a bunch of crap, etc. We actually did some research on the strawberries and found the correct ones for our region. Junebearer is the type that is the best for our region. Ordered about 100 plants because The Wife wants a lot of jam so there you go. We’ll see what we get off of them this year.

Good looking pepper roots.

Peas. Need to get supports up!

Cabbage, Bok Choy, etc.

Bees LOVE this.

Spreading out some.

Speaking of bees, our wonderful addition from a few years ago, Chewie, loves to spend his time outside trying to catch them. I have no idea why he likes to do this but he will jump and run after them. Here he is on patrol after losing his last attempt.

Chewman.

As I said I got the peppers and strawberries all planted in, mostly. As I type this I realize I still have to work on some bell peppers.

Strawberries.

Chili and banana peppers.

Weekly view.

I have a good selection of plants for the sale we’ll be having soon with more coming. The local farmer’s market opens May 9th this year. We’re still on the fence about trying to join it this year.

Plants for sale.

Busy week ahead. Hope to get everything else planted out this coming weekend. Got to get back on the room upstairs. Have a good week!

New Site

I have moved everything over to my new site. Still a work in progress but it works.

Almost Ready

I have been playing around with the new website's software and learning (albeit slowly) what I can and how to work things. I don't remember it being this hard to learn new things. Hopefully I'll have everything up and running smoothly in a few days. Small additions after that. Hardest part was settling on a theme and I'm not 100% sure on the one I picked. I'll keep looking.

Memorial Day weekend for everyone here in the USA. We certainly are thankful for what we have and try to say thanks, not just on this day but on every day that we can. Amy even decorated the yard up some. She's definitely more military- geared than I am.

It seemed like I spent most of my time working everywhere I could. I spent a lot of time working in the garden; weeding, cutting, trimming, more effing weeding, replanting (lost a tomato to something), mulching, fertilizing (10-10-10 is my choice.) I tilled around the potatoes, bush beans, and corn to weed them out some, hilled the potatoes some more, and soaked everything good. Surprisingly the corn has made an appearance and seems to be doing well.

I got the fence run between the boards for the beans to climb. But I now have Bean Beetles.

Yes I spilled the beans! Bag came open and poured out. I am too lazy to pick up all of the bean seed thinking that nothing would happen. 

I did put up fencing for these peas yesterday. 

I spent a little bit this weekend and got a daylily for my garden. Love me some daylilies. 

Even the one in the front bed just started blooming out. 

Well, a quick post at lunch. Do more later as the dogs and I will be hidden in the bedroom while The Wife hosts a party for something. 

Jammin

That's what we are doing on the homestead this morning. We spent yesterday goofing morning around town; visiting the dealership to get an oil change, cruised the Dunn Farmers Market (got a plat of strawberries, more later) breakfast, big box store for a few things, and back home. We spent the afternoon working on craft projects and the garden some more. I will say that I am really going to give this a good effort this year. I think all of the rain last year pretty much did a lot of people in, lack of enthusiasm seeming permeating everywhere. And with the record- setting rain we had a few days ago, everyone is like "Shit." But an effort will be made.

I got all of the potato plants strawed out in the afternoon. I did encounter a few beetles here and there but not too many so I just picked them off and squished them as I went. Leave them like this until they are ready to come out of the ground.

Got the first cucumber bloom yesterday. These were a big bust for us last year so here's to crossing fingers for this year's harvest.

Amy did a lot of crafting yesterday and ended up finishing the chair idea of hers. We got two old chairs at the auction last weekend for $5.00 total and she turned one of them into this. 

Onto the strawberries. We have been some good pickings so far this year on our strawberries and since we love them, we seem to eat a lot of them. The idea behind the plat purchase yesterday was so we could combine it with ours and can some jam. So that's what we are doing this morning, canning. And from observations (read tasting) it's going to be good. All in all we did (16) 8 oz. jars.

We have actually considered getting some more stuff in the ground and selling our wares plus other items at the Farmers Market. We'll kick it around some more. Naming it has come down to two choices; Woflandia Farms or WOF Dog farms.  

Speaking of which. WOF of the week. We were outside working and guess who else wants out?

Yes, she got to come out but is pretty much useless helping us out. 

Should Have Did or Done This Earlier

Cruised the garden yesterday evening and guess what; the bastard beetles were back on my potatoes with a vengeance. So today instead of crawling around for another 3 hours I decided to take a more direct approach.

This is how I originally spelled the word. Thank goodness for that squiggly red line. I must be getting dumber.

Here they are.

And here the go into my weapon of choice.

All said and done it took me about 20 minutes to do all of the plants. I made sure I got each stem up in the hose so as not to miss any of the little buggers. I am going to wait and take another good look in the morning and get any remaining family members then straw around all of the plants. 

I let the carnage of vacuum hell and proceeded to cut on the tomatoes and do some more tying up, pulling weeds as I go. Actually got a few Romas set on now and the plants as a whole look a lot better than they did about a month ago. It hasn't been real warm yet except for a few random days so they should really take off soon when summer gets closer. 

In off- hand dumbass news I was sitting in my office Thursday trying to add some flavoring to my water bottle and managed to get the red stuff everywhere, mainly because I am clumsy. Amy said it looked like a crime scene. So off to the store for a shirt. Bacon is good for me.

I have started working on a new blog site for this blog through using a Wordpress handler. It's been a looonnnggg time since I have messed around with this stuff (read Frontpage and Dreamweaver) and have at least settle on a theme. Slowly getting the hang of it though it may take a little while to get it done. www.tossing-dirt.com is the domain and I chose Fatcow as my web provider. 

Well off to do a few things. I leave you with shop vac terror.