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.