Oh Look.... More Garden Pictures!

Beans, cucumber plants, baby crookneck squash and a volunteer sunflower poking its way up through the mulch in the blueberry patch. Oh and yes, that is me. It was pouring rain. But, that does not deter me from making my rounds and checking the garden each and every morning. You can generally find me out doing this between 6 and 7 AM. And, I do keep a close eye on it. Want to know what is happening and if there is something going on, ie bugs or, whatever, I can jump right on it. Hopefully correct it too. We've just had a good day of rain and today we are going to have a very warm and sunny day. The plants will be loving this. They should all have big growth spurts today.

A Garden

A garden is to be a world unto itself, it had better make room for the darker shades of feeling as well as the sunny ones. William Kent

Pests in the Garden?

Noticing any pests in your garden—rabbits, moles, slugs? Here are five tips to help:

• To deter deer and raccoons, tie old sneakers and clothes that smell of human perspiration to garden posts.
• Scatter garlic to deter many a pest—such as deer, woodchucks, and raccoons.
• To see a mole “run out, astonished” (according to 16th-century herbalist John Gerard), put a bulb of garlic in its hole.
• Sprinkle ground red pepper in entrances to mole tunnels.
• If your neighbors don’t mind, play a radio at low volume!

Can Anyone Name This Plant?

Anyone have any idea what this plant is?
It's stems and leaves have a very strong and almost... almost recognizable smell.
It now has a fluffy yellow colored seed head. It's stalks are mostly hollow.
It's well over 7 feet tall and just continues to grow like a.... well like a weed.

Garden Update in Pictures

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I mislabeled these thinking it was the 7th... it's not obviously. It's the 14th of June and once again we are expecting rain. Which is good for me (no lugging the hoses and watering cans around) and the rain barrels, which will finally finish filling up to their tops.

With these pictures you will see where we have topped off the plants with lots and lots of mulch. We have started to tie up the plants which will be needing supports. Primarily the tomatoes and the pole beans. The tie ups for the tomatoes is something I am trying from a food network show I saw about heirloom tomatoes grown in Homestead Florida. It looked easy enough and really keeps the bottom leaves up off the ground which will allow me to mulch in and under those maters soon.

You can see in a couple of the pictures the start of some baby zucchini squash and some of the baby yellow crookneck squashes. One of our favorites to eat all summer long.

There are some huge sunflowers running along the back wall of the drum room. They are in with the sugar pumpkins and acorn squash. All of which were started from seed saving I did last year.

Carrot tops are those lacy looking things.... leaf lettuce in two colors..... and finally a sweet pepper sent to me from a friend in the States. It's an heirloom called Jimmy Nardello.... suppose to be sweet without heat and very tasty. Almost forgot that single strand of pole bean reaching up and over the string supports.

All for your viewing pleasure. Let me know your thoughts and any words of wisdom you might have about gardening or, anything really.

No Time to Post

I have no time this morning for a long post.
I am going to the local farmers market for the first time this year.
And, if I don't get on the stick quickly here I won't be like the early bird...... you know the one who catches the worm?
Don't want to arrive to find everything gone and picked over.

So here's to eating local and helping to keep our farmers in business!

The Rains and Sun of June

I am so pleased with how well my garden is growing. We are finally over the hot and dry last days of May when we had no water in the rain barrels and were watering with the well water. The rain barrels are overflowing and have been for a couple of days now and I am directing the water away from the house foundations. We have been having one or, two days of sun followed by a day or two, of good soaking rains. Just plain wonderful gardening weather.

The pictures today are of the potatoes I planted in the old horseshoe pit and buried in straw. Peas getting ready to flower as they try and grow up the fence. This was in the area where we had the bird's nest we couldn't disturb. As you can see the weeds got ahead of me around the peas. And, the last and final picture is of the corn I planted late. It's doing marvelously well already.

My neighbor asked how I was going to harvest the corn. You see it's in one of the "raised" SFG boxes which is raised up off the ground about 3 feet. I told her I would bring the step ladder out to pick the corn. Ha ha ha, which if the packet the seed came in is correct with it's information, the corn should grow to 5 - 6 feet. But, then again that one box is on a downward sloping hill. I'll make sure to post pictures of us harvesting it.

Grandma's Apron

Grandma's Apron …

I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because
she only had a few. It was also because it was easier to wash aprons than
dresses and aprons used less material. But along with that, it served as a
potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for
cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and
sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.

Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.

From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been
shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the
trees.

When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture
that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and
the men folks knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that
'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.


By The Way …

Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her
granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

Funny Weather Sayings

June Weather Lore

When pigs carry sticks, the clouds will play tricks.

When the glowworm lights her lamp, the air is always very damp.

Bats flying late in the evening indicate fair weather.
If the birds be silent, expect thunder.

When spiders’ webs in air do fly,
The spell will soon be very dry.

When sheep collect and huddle, tomorrow will become a puddle.

Update in Pictures of the Garden

I was out and about early this morning in the garden. It's pretty cool out there at a brisk 6 C (or, 42.8 F). Brr. I needed to pick some of the greens to bring to a friend I am visiting today. She'll be gifting me with some things and I thought it would be nice to bring fresh produce from my garden to her in return. So in a bag waiting to be taken to her house is; spinach, lettuce and swiss chard.

I wanted to get some pictures of some of the plants and document how they are doing. Primarily the tomatoes. I was given via Freecycle some tomato seedlings someone had which were extras for him. They were two types I am not growing so I thought.... what the hay? Boy are they small. I will post pictures of my own tomatoes and some of the newbies. The size difference is amazing as you will see. I planted some in the SFG boxes and some right in the bags of earth from the store. There was no more room at the inn, so to speak. I was going to do the "African bag" garden but, didn't have enough stones to do it, opted to cheat on them and see if they will vine over the sides of the table and grow that way?

I also wanted to post some pictures of the arctic willow. It was a gift for me from my DH for my birthday. We had been (notice the past tense in this sentence?) really worried about her. She came to us with a decimated root ball. We did all we could when she was planted out to give her a good start but, she went through some terrible transplant shock and we thought we were going to loose her. In the picture the burnt looking bedraggled leaves are the ones that died with the shock. Though a couple of days ago I went out on my early morning rounds in the garden and lo and behold she was growing new leaves. That's what the picture is of......the newly budding leaves.... the arctic willow is fighting and coming back. Woo hoo!

The picture with the stake in the middle is the horseshoe pit I took over. I decided since no one in this family pitches shoes there had to be a good way to use the pit. There was and is. Those green things poking up through the straw are potato leaves. I planted some potatoes from PEI (Prince Edward Island - renowned for their potatoes) in there. And, they are looking mighty fine already. It time to top them with more hay.

How does your garden grow? I hope it is doing as well as can be expected.