March 1, 2026

We have tried unsuccessfully to grow spaghetti squash over the last few years, which is annoying, since other people seem to be able to grow them just fine.  These came from a friend and had sprouting seeds in them. I planted them and one is growing into a nice little plant. It will be interesting to see what comes of it. Unfortunately, the squash didn't cook up or taste very well. We are blaming it on the sprouting. 

Now, Jim wonders what we will do as it gets bigger!

 

February 28, 2026

We are "dry as a bone" so far this year. We've had a couple of limited amount of snow events, and a week or so ago, we got 3.5".  We need a good, slow, soaking rain. This winter has been very mild with more than usual 50 degree and above days. I have some good friends who take and display sunrise photos so here are a couple of mine.

Jim has been building and painting corral fence. I took the photo because the sunset afterlight made a pretty blue sky. It was only after I took it that I noticed how nice the painted fence looks.

 

August 15, 2025

 So far, this has been quite the year. I've been doing more work at the office, looking after Oliver part time, going places and weeding and putting up garden stuff. That stopped after we got back just before August and corn needed to be done up. So we did, five batches of it, three by ourselves and one each with Lorene's family and Aaron. In total we put up 36 and a half dozen ears which produced 94 quarts of corn to freeze. 

I've put some onions in the freezer, we've dug a few potatoes, I've made some pickles, mostly dill and beet. I made one batch of Bread and Butter Pickles that are mostly onions and we've frozen about 3 gallons of beans, and the rest we are just letting go to pot. We are too tired and too busy to care much. The garden didn't do very well anyway and we were gone too much. I put my swiss chard stems in the freezer for smoothies and we are starting to get a few tomatoes, but they are overtaken by water hemp or whatever that hugely tall weed is with the sticky seed heads.

I like photos with my blogs, but I accidently deleted the one I wanted, which was a annual about the color of this darker sweet potato vine that is doing well. There is some yellow thing growing nicely. I guess I better take photos of the plants to remember that way. I want them again next year. 

June 28, 2025

Reading stories about eating "greens" in the spring has always interested me, so we tried some. I think these are swiss chard.  Since I can't taste them, I can only go by the texture and they were tough, and Jim thought they were horrible. He doesn't like any sort of greens, so there you are.

This is a good photo of our garden in June. We never post photos of what it looks like in August.

It doesn't look the same.

This is a gorgeous plant. I put it in the flower garden to be watered while we were gone, but it died anyway. I want another one next year.

When we plant a package of red beets and some of them are white....

 

May 29, 2025

As before mentioned, this has been a strange spring. Right now, we've had several days of chilly, cloudy, sprinkly weather.  Jim planted all the early seeds and potatoes, and most of them didn't come up. It didn't warm up like some years and we had no rain, so we blamed it on that. Jim planted again in early May, we had some warm days and some wet ones and things are coming up. The lettuce, though, not at all. 

I planted these flowers in my flower garden with the intent to write down where I planted them. I didn't so I'm going to try to remember now. The Alyssum I planted next to the iris south of the house because it is supposed to like hot, dry weather. That spot doesn't get watered. I planted one next to the back of the waterfall into the pond, and one some place in the rock garden section, and the zinnas ... I can't remember. It's getting pretty weedy out there and Jim helped me one day getting the rock garden section cleaned up. Then it started raining again. We got 2". It's a big help for the new grass planted where the old septic tank was and the new one is. 

 

April 19, 2025

A new growing season is upon us. I thought we had a pretty mild winter, with a couple of weeks of near zero weather and a total of 9" of snow in the only significant snows we had this winter and they were after the first of the year including the one in March as evidenced in the first photo here. 

Last fall mom shared some spring bulbs with me and I evidently planted them and forgot about them because I was surprised when they bloomed. The funny thing is, Mom forgot about hers, too.

According to my brother, netted iris.

I've never been able to get crocuses to grow, so we'll see how they do in future years. If they look like they are lying down, they are, because the wind is blowing.

I love my scillas. They are the only thing in the garden that is really blue. My blue bells are very blue and are growing into a big clump, but I didn't get a picture.

I love all the different kinds of daffodils and jonquils I have. It has been a strange spring with hot and cold weather at the wrong times and some of my jonquils at the front of the house didn't bloom at all and my hyacinths never came up.

Pear blossoms.

End of the day.

 

July 4, 2024

 I've really fallen down on the job on keeping up this blog.  I've been spending too much time knitting to the detriment of everything else. 

Our garden is going well, so are the weeds.  We've had more than usual rain this spring, 4" in this last week, and plenty before then. Other parts of the state have had more rain, plus tornados, hail and high winds. We've been fortunate to miss all of that. 

I've been putting brown wood chips on the flower gardens. I'm having my usual trouble of getting things to grow. The soil is not the best and it's shady. On a side note, the two ash trees that produce seeds, in the flower garden and the front yard got shriveled up leaves that turned black when they fell off. My son said it was emerald ash beetle. I looked it up and a fungus does the same thing. Emerald ash borer infected trees usually die top down, and fungus damaged trees grow new normal leaves. Ours regrew leaves so my diagnosis is fungus. The tree in the backyard that doesn't produce seeds, was not affected.

I have picked all the lettuce and spinach and put it in the freezer for smoothies. We've had a couple messes of beets before this and I'm using onions.  A few of the yellow onion are already affected by the usual fungus. I intend to pick more at a time than I need and freeze what I don't use. 

Today, Jim braved the mud and picked 1 3/4 buckets of beets. I pickled 5 quarts and saved a few to take to my folks. I got a white beet, the second so far. 

Jim had butchered 4 chickens and plans to do more tomorrow. 

Beet photos:

Beet greens -- not bad

I washed these beets outside, they were so muddy.

 

May 1, 2024

 Gardening season has started, albeit a little late on our end. Jim has been sick with a very tiring and coughing virus and finally has enough energy to get some planting done. He planted potatoes two days ago, onions, beets, peas, lettuce, carrots and swiss chard yesterday. We don't have spinach seed. We got almost 2.5" of rain last week, which was nice, but also hindered the planting. I have been slowly weeding and getting trash out of the flower gardens. It's been windy the last few days and it hasn't been a fun job. Today was cloudy as well as windy, so I didn't go out at all. I planted a couple of perennials. One I don't remember just now and the other was and ice flower plant. Our mix of shade, sun and clay soil limits what and how things grow. 

I have what I think is a spaghetti squash plant growing in a pot in my dining room. The last spaghetti squash we opened to cook had two sprouting seeds and I planted them. One came up and is blooming. Since it grew among all our other squash it could be cross pollinated and who knows what we will get. 

September 30, 2023

 Summer if over, and I haven't blogged much about gardening this year.

We had a prolific year. I had more cucumbers than I needed. We ate them as salad every day. I use equal parts of mayo and sour cream and sprinkle in a little sugar and a little more garlic powder. I have a lot of pickles left over from last year, so I only made as many as I though we would need besides those, and we pulled up most of the vines. Our tomatoes, too, did really well. I made 60 pints of tomato soup and 50 quarts of juice. I canned and froze two lugs of peaches. We also put away 101 quarts of corn in three sessions. I am out of jars. Usually, I put tomatoes in the freezer and when I want juice I take out an ice cream bucket of frozen tomatoes and make some. The freezer this year is full of chickens, beef and deer. We need to be having some company to help us eat it. Both of us eat less than we used to. 

In the flower garden realm, I am feeling a real lack of interest in doing any more weeding or cleaning up, so I haven't. I'm also very disappointed in the petunias I planted in my big flower garden. I don't know whether it's the soil or the shade. I think pinks do better. 

Next year I want to budget enough to go hog-wild on bedding plants and crowd them in, since they don't seem to spread, just hang on. 

I'm glad Jim likes to do the gardening. I don't do very much picking, but as the tomatoes and beans come on, I usually help. 

Our peppers are all in the freezer, and so is the okra. Jim forgot about planting beans until the summer was half over, so when he planted them, they took forever to get going and we picked a few now and then and then ignored them. A week ago, those bean plants were burgeoning with beans. We picked them and it was such a tiring job, that we pulled up 2/3 of them, intending to pick the ones left to eat. We haven't. I put 7 quarts in the freezer. 

June 29, 2023

It's a beautiful day out today, and I hope to get out and do some more weeding in the flower gardens. 

We were gone a week and with the rain we got just before we left meant the weeds had taken over, especially the last two rows of corn which were completely hidden. We are getting a few peas now and I pulled all the spinach and lettuce because it was going to bolt soon. What we couldn't eat I put in the freezer. Our lettuce didn't come up very well at all, and the first photo is about a third of the spinach. 

We haven't had very many hot days, and a decent amount of rain, a little over 2" this month, had made weeding easy and everything, including weeds, grow. Our grapes seem to be doing well, we are out of both juice and jam. 

 

May 3, 2023

 Spring has been a slow starter this year.  We've had plenty of cold springs of late, but as soon as we get a bit more green or a few 'soft' days, we start hoping the cold is gone and warm and growing days are right around the corner. Hope springs eternal. We had some hot days in April, but more often we've had chill and wind. A lot of wind. Several days with 30+mph wind made it unpleasant to want to be out working in gardens or at all. 

Yesterday was a very pleasant day, with 57 degree temps and little wind. I even felt warm digging out a few weeds and planting seeds. I planted moss ross by the mailbox and some more in our little corner plot at the front of the house, along with some snapdragon seeds.  I'm not sure I'll have much luck with growing things from seeds, except zinnas which a harvested myself. The alyssum I planted under the flag pole are tiny things just starting to come up.

Jim says that the peas are coming up as well.  

April 15, 2023

Spring is coming, although it doesn't look like it from these pictures on March 26th. We woke that day to a surprise of 8" of snow on Sunday morning. 

Now, nearly a month later, our garden has been covered with chicken manure and compost, chiseled, tilled and planted with early crops. Potatoes, spinach, lettuce, beets, peas and onions.  We have been having a problem with two kinds of fungus on our onions, root rot and black mildew. The online solution is not to plant onions where there is fungus for 6 years. Our solution is to plant fewer onions and harvest them before the fungus does. 

We bought a dozen JetStar tomato plants. We really liked the way the produced and stayed healthy last year, so we are trying them again. We have 2 milk jugs of the 12 we need to cover them, and we plan on getting some yellow tomato plants later. 

I have planted alyssum seeds by the flag pole and the spot by the driveway. I planted snapdragon seeds there also.  (by the driveway) I intended to plant them in two spots, but when I was half done I noticed I spilled the rest onto the edging, so now I will have plants were I don't want them. If they come up, anyway. 

After three hot days last week, two of which the temperatures approached 90. we are expecting frost for the next couple of nights.  We had drizzle today, which was welcome.  We are very dry around here at the moment. 

 

September 5, 2022

The gardening season is coming to a close. Beans are done, cucumbers are done, summer and winter squash are done, (having never gotten started because of bugs) and the tomatoes are finally getting red.  I've put up a a dozen jars of juice already and today 10 more quarts.  We bought one of those thingys that spit out juice and pulp one way and skins and seeds another.  It makes the whole process a whole lot faster. 

Part of today's.

These have been our best producers. No bugs or cracks.

Aaron and the boys (enthusiastic helpers) cut 6, SIX, mind you!! Walmart bags stuffed with elderberry heads  After reading that the stems are toxic, I painstakingly stripped the berries off to get 12 cups of the tiny berries to make jelly. I got syrup because the recipe called for sure-jell (powdered pectin) not Certo (liquid pectin) which Jim has been eating enthusiastically on toast. So I did it all again, 3 hours of picking over (no help from Jim this time) and using sure-jell, I have beautiful jelly.  I wish I could taste it. Mom has been unenthusiastic from the start, saying she had elderberry jelly when she was a girl and it was awful. I wonder if it was really elderberry, or less sugar was used, or as om said, she was a girl, not grown up.

This is how I froze most of my apples.

Jim has half the potatoes dug.  I like the Yukon Golds the best of any we've ever planted. They keep well, too, as well as you can expect any to keep in our less than ideal conditions.  We have no cellar and our basement being walkout and our storm cellar damp, we are lucky to keep any.

August is usually dry and it seems to be heading that way into September, at least for us.  Others around us have had some rain. 

 

August 9, 2022

Update on the harvest for the last couple of weeks:

I had a list of exact numbers and that was also the list of things I needed to do.  It's gone.

I made more bread and butter and dill pickles.

Our corn was done over three days and we got 87 three cup bags and two gallon ones.

Now we are doing apples which were damaged by hail earlier this summer. So far we have 8 ice cream buckets of sliced peeled apples in the freezer.  

Earlier we put three gallons of sliced and peeled apples from our yellow summer apple tree. Earlier this year in the first windstorm we had that tree fell over. Some of the roots were still connected enough to ripen the apples. 

The cows and chickens got the rest of the apples.

 

July 28, 2022

 Yesterday, corn day, pickle day, boys to camp and back again day.

We had rain on Monday and cool days since, so when I went out to pick the tiny cucumbers for dills, I got muddy, mostly from the knees down. I can still stick my foot into the sink and clean up. I could sit on the rim of the bathtub, but there is a door rail there.  When I can't get my feet up that high, I hope to be done with getting muddy. 

I got 5 jars of tiny dills, and one didn't seal. I gave some cukes to the neighbor, made cucumber salad for supper and still have plenty left.  I got 8 quarts of dill pickles and 4 of bread and butter earlier this week. I couldn't find any dill in the garden, so I bought dill weed from the store. In a spice bottle.  

Last night, Jim and Aaron shucked corn, had supper, and then cut and bagged while I cooked corn and cleaned up. Out of 13 dozen plus 5 ears, we got 37 3-cup bags to freeze. 

I was tired, my feet hurt, my back hurt, my head hurt and I was glad to shower and go to bed. 

July 25, 2022

99 This year is rolling right along with time rushing by.  The gardening bit really had a slow start with no rain, but we have had some good rains right along and the garden is doing well.  Our peas took forever to get going, but we had plenty to eat.  I don't like to freeze them; they just don't cook up very well. Our zucchini and yellow squash are dying and it looks like we aren't going to get any to do anything with.  We've had a few to eat and Jim planted some more.  The 1.05" of rain we had today will help that get started.  What chance we have to make a crop, I don't know.  We had a major infestation of bugs last fall and lost all our vine crops.  We have been using Sevin, and at the Farmer's Market last week, I got the advice to work in some insecticide in the fall, so I need to look up some options there. 

We got our first picking of beans this weekend.  We've been eating sweet corn for several days and Jim and I put up the first batch today.  It rained all morning to the point of no work getting done outside so Jim braved the wet and picked about 9 dozen and we got 18 - 3 cup bags with more to come. Jim saved the caterpillars in a separate bucket for the chickens and the cows (belong to a friend) got the cobs.  Jim had them trained and they come running when he goes down. We had a really hot spell the last couple of weeks and the cows and the pasture are suffering. This rain and extra corn leavings will be welcome. 

Peaches were at a couple year low, 99 cents a pound. I got four 25 pound boxes and froze some whole, some sliced for mom, saved a lot to eat, put a few away as smoothie fruit and canned the rest. I have written down 23 quarts and 5 pints (for mom). It seems like I made more than that. I also made three pies. One of my quarts of peaches broke just as the canner was getting up to steam.  I sure hate to waste the fruit, but that's the way it is.  As I was putting away the jars, I noticed a cracked one. I'm glad I found it early. 

Our cucumbers are going strong.  I don't really need anymore pickles. The last two years have produced an overabundance.  So far, I've made 7 quarts and 1 pint of dill pickles and 3 quarts and 1 pints of Bread and Butter pickles and we are eating as many as we can.  I like them best with a mayo, garlic, sugar sauce and save some from supper to have the next day in a sandwich for lunch.  

We are having cooler days this week and it is nice.  We opened the side vents of our French door and the new ones in our picture window and enjoyed the cool coming in from the rain as we did corn this morning. 

I enjoy the "putting up" of the produce once I get started. This has been a busy summer and the work isn't as appealing. 

May 10, 2022

Things are marching on in the garden department.  Saturday, we bought 12 tomato plants, Rutgers and Better Girl.  We also bought some yellow tomato plants, planted three and gave three away to friends. Jim got the hitch on the MT fixed so that he could use the planter to plant sweet corn.  It was still a bit wet, but he planted 4 short rows anyway. 

I didn't' post anything about our new chickens.  These are the meat birds, we bought 25, 2 were killed and three turkey chicks.  Unfortunately, the turkeys were picking on the chickens, so they are separated. They turkeys did not kill the chickens, it was an unfortunate accident of a falling brooder house cover. We also have 6 new layer chicks.

I think Paislee has a turkey chick.

 

May 3, 2022

 
I've said this before, this has been a strange winter and spring weather-wise.  We didn't have any appreciable moisture in the snow variety or any other variety over the winter.  The temperatures have been volatile. On April 29th we got 2" much needed rain with mostly marble-sized hail, plus a few a little bigger in 45 minutes and then another .6" overnight. That hail propelled by a strong west wind banged on our brand-new living room picture window. I was a bit nervous, but it stood the onslaught. Usually, that isn't a worry with the long roof overhangs we have. The only real damage was some bruising on the onions and rather battered tulips.  

Then on May 2nd we got some more rain ultimately another 1.5" with snow.  And here is proof.  

It was cold this day.  I don't think Jim has ever mowed in coveralls. 

Weird weather.