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Saturday, July 30, 2016

Something new

I have yet to have a successful fall garden. The biggest reason for that is lack of planning. In January, I'm great at figuring out what seeds I need to start when, but in July, not so much. Another culprit is forgetfulness. I've been known to put seeds in the ground and forget that they need watering every day in order to sprout.

When the rabbit destroyed my spring-planted beets, I decided that this was the year I was finally going to make a real effort for a fall garden. Nothing crazy, mind you, just some beets and cabbage, since I still need to figure out the sauerkraut thing.

We only fenced two of the raised beds, and neither of them had enough room, so I couldn't direct sow the seeds and expect them to be safe from Mr. Nibblepants. Instead, a couple weeks ago, I got some potting soil and filled a flat.



Rather than keep them inside, I left them on the deck. Within a few days, most of the cells had sprouted. At that point I figured I was fine, as long as I kept them watered and didn't leave them in the hot sun too long.


Unfortunately, one morning I noticed a few of the seedlings had no leaves. That night I brought them inside, thinking that maybe some night-flying creature had simply stumbled upon them while buzzing around the deck. No such luck. The next morning a few more leaves were missing. I suffered a couple more days and a few more leaves before I decided to spray them all with an alcohol/water mix.

Before that had time to have any effect, however, I found the culprit: a black caterpillar. I was so mad, I didn't even stop to get his picture before flinging him into the yard. Not sure how I'd missed him because he was as long as the seedlings are tall. That was yesterday, and I didn't notice anymore damage this morning. I don't think these seedlings are going to recover, however.


The ones that didn't get munched look pretty good, though, and it's about time to play executioner.



I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but my chances of having a little fall garden this year don't look too bad.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

This and that

Between being busy and having miserable weather, I haven't spent much time in the garden lately, other than to water and pick cucumbers. I have observed a few things over the past week, however.

All of my pepper plants have peppers on them now, so I can finally tell the plants apart. This one has a cluster of peppers packed together.



One of them has grown between the stalks, and I think I'll have to cut it in half to get it off the plant.


My butternut squash has several fruits on it.


The humidity is unending, and my camera fogs up every time I go outside.


Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumbers have the cutest little flowers.


For scale, that fence is 1/2 inch hardware cloth. Some of the little cucumbers are almost ripe. I can't wait to try them.

I made zucchini carrot fritters, and they were delicious.


It's always good when you figure out how to eat what you grow.

Monday, July 18, 2016

Harvest Monday 7.18

It's Monday again, and that means joining in Harvest Monday at Our Happy Acres.

After a week or so of reasonable temperatures, we're going back to the upper 90's and 100's later this week. Luckily, we've been getting fairly regular rain, so nothing is suffering too bad yet. We'll see how we're all doing in a few days.

This past week was a pretty good one, with a couple notable harvests. Tuesday, I pulled some more carrots and cut some kale. In addition to my regular few leaves for daily smoothies, I picked enough to freeze some.


Carrot pie was on the menu on Thursday, and it was delicious as usual, but it isn't photogenic.

I declared my onions cured, bagged them and hung them in the basement.


I don't have a scale that could weigh them properly, but based on my weight on the scale, holding the bag, I say that's close to 10 pounds of onions.

I've been watching a couple cucumbers and decided on Sunday they were ready. It's a good thing I took my gardener's tote with me.


I ended up picking four cucumbers, a zucchini, several more carrots and my first Healthy pepper.



The zucchini was a real surprise. The plant itself is basically rotting away.


And every other zucchini has been chucked in the composter.


The one I got is the biggest one I've seen on the plant so far. I'm thinking about zucchini and carrot fritters some night this week.

Four cucumbers is a lot when they're this big.


I want to try some refrigerator pickles. If I don't get around to it this week, we'll eat them as cucumber salad or maybe share a couple with friends. There are plenty more on the plant.

The summer veggies are finally starting to come in, and I'm looking forward to a lot more Harvest Mondays.


Monday, July 11, 2016

Harvest Monday 7.11

I had a few notable harvests this week.

First, basil. My brother and I had worked out a pesto deal a couple months ago. When we were visiting our sister in New Mexico, he bought some pinon nuts. The deal was, I'd grow the basil, he'd supply the pinon nuts, and we'd make pesto. I jumped the gun a little on Tuesday, picked a small bunch and made a little batch of pesto.


Saturday, with my brother en route to my house with the pinons, I picked a lot more basil.


We made a double batch of pesto, and I froze mine in muffin tins. I love pulling pesto out of the freezer in January. I'm not sure any of this will last that long, but I've already got some more basil sprouting.

It occurred to me this week that my carrots were probably ready to pull. One thing I need to do better is identify a projected harvest date for things like carrots, that you can't really see. If I don't have a date in mind, I forget that they need to be pulled. At any rate, I pulled a few, and they looked great.


Well, most of them did.


This was the biggest one.


The carrots are Danvers from Seed Savers Exchange. Most of them will end up in carrot pie, my absolute favorite way to eat carrots, but I decided to try something new and made pickled carrots.


It isn't possible for me to take a decent picture inside. I'll never figure out the lighting.

At any rate, the recipe I used was a more "bread and butter" type recipe, so they turned out pretty sweet. I like them, but next time I will look for a less-sweet recipe.

The final and most exciting harvest of the week...


three Mexico Midget tomatoes! And, it was so humid again that the camera fogged up. These little things are going right into my belly.

I'm linking up again with Harvest Monday at Our Happy Acres.

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Training day

I caught this little guy on the deck the other morning, possibly nibbling on my flowers.


He is a baby red belly woodpecker.


It wasn't long before dad arrived and showed him what you're really supposed to eat on the deck.




After a couple minutes, dad flew away. The little guy stayed for a few more seconds, and then flew off, too.


The red bellies are regular visitors to my suet feeder, but I don't remember seeing a baby before. I hope he remembers where the good stuff is and comes back often.

Thursday, July 7, 2016

The promise of things to come


Never mind that the biggest one, which I've been watching for a couple weeks, has blossom end rot. I didn't even know it occurred on zucchini until now.






I saved the best for last.


The teeny, tiniest baby cucumbers imaginable.


Sunday, July 3, 2016

Help with the rabbits?

I walked through the living room the other evening, and something in the backyard caught my eye.


I think I've seen this guy once before, but it was last fall. He was clearly on a mission, so I grabbed my camera and watched. I had to stand on a chair in the living room, so I could see him over the deck railing.


He crept very slowly along the fence, standing still for long periods of time, never taking his eye off the rabbit sitting in the yard.

This is a different picture than the one above...


the only thing that was moving was his tail.

He started to make his move...


and had just decided it was time to go for it...


when the rabbit darted under the fence and into the neighbor's yard.


I looked away for a second, and the cat was gone. I hope he ran into the neighbor's yard, too. Even though he didn't catch the rabbit, at least he chased it out of my yard for a little while.

Saturday, July 2, 2016

The heat

Earlier this week, our weather finally broke and temperatures returned to something tolerable. Before that, we'd had about 4 weeks with daytime highs of at least 90 and more often 95-100. It was stifling and certainly took a toll on the garden.

I mentioned earlier how the onions had already fallen over. I finally decided to pull them all and take what I got.


This one was the biggest:


The basil is already blooming, so I'm going to end up picking most of it soon.


I have planted a few seeds next to these plants, and I will probably put some more in the raised beds. I really wanted a good stash of pesto in the freezer this year.

My potatoes are struggling to bloom. There are just a few flowers barely visible.


I didn't get my second cabbage picked before it turned into pac man.

feed me
It looks like I'm going to have some carrot flowers.


I've never had carrots flower before, so I'm curious to see what they look like. So far, there are only two plants doing this.

On a good note, the cucumbers are going crazy.


The difference between the two varieties is striking. The Mexican Sour Gherkin is such a dainty little plant.


I should've thinned the seedlings a little better. These pictures were a few days ago, and both varieties are climbing the fence now. The Japanese climbing cucumber is way off the top of the trellis and just about over the fence. I'll be stepping over it to walk around the gardens soon.

I've spotted a couple little zucchini.


Last year was my first year growing them, and I only got one. I'm hoping to get more than that this year, and I've got my eyes open for good zucchini recipes.

I've also seen some blooms on the tomatoes.


So, even though the heat took its toll on some things in the garden, there are many others to look forward to.