We had rain this morning, but the clouds are gone, and the sun is out. When the patio dries off, I plan to get some much needed sweeping done, and may dig some potatoes, if the ground is dry enough.
I finally have some tomatoes with flowers on them. I have some old deck corn seeds that got overlooked, so I stuck them in a flat made out of a milk carton to see if anything sprouts. I also found some peanuts, that will just barely have time to mature, so will plant a few mainly to have some to plant next year.
With all the rain, I turned from working in the garden to working in the house - fantastic bargains on meat and chicken for the holiday, so I bought a bunch and pressure canned it. I also reorganized the pantry a bit, shifted the older stock out to the area for easier access.
Cleaned out the utility storage area where the hot water heater is. Rotated the emergency water where it is easier to get to - a bit past time for it's use. Packed some liter soda bottles and lids away in cardboard box for more compressed storage - they make good plant pots as well as other uses.
Reading material this month is Slug Bread and Beheaded Thistles. So far, I've read that Buffalo grass doesn't need mowing, 7-8 gallons of compost is needed for 100 sq. ft. of garden space, and Japanese Beetles have a fatal attraction to Geranium Maculation(wild geranium with pink flowers).
Hope you are all doing well. Prayers up for all, and especially those whose loved ones work in harm's way, as well as those who have suffered losses this week.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the List.
We doin ok up here in Foley. It is the triple H here [hazy,hot & humid] my pond has been over flowing this week & I’m gonna have to rebuild it this fall [if & when I have the money] I am also gonna have to brush hog the property just get the grass under control. The garden is being over run by the weeds & I’m gonna have to go out and do battle with them, if I want to harvest anything this fall.
Hi greeneyes and everyone!
It rained again, and the grass is insanely growing! If I had a garden this year, it probably would be too!
The perennials are doing well. The black berries are ripe and Darlin has been harvesting a few beauties here and there and bringing them to me for a special treat.... LOL! unfortunately they have an astounding pucker factor! Sour???? You bet!
I ran across this survival hack for using a plastic water bottle in creative ways. At about 8:15, there is a demonstration of to use one for a seed or seedling planter. Very clever!
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
Blessings
texokie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jUchqJ4lIA
Glad to see that you have had rain.
We, in Western NY, are currently in the 5th most drought spring/summer condition of recorded history.
Just got a 'spritz' yesterday that evaporated while it fell.
We are measuring rainfall in hundredths and thousands of an inch here as the lawns are bare and brown.
Send some our way !
Joining you in your prayer for those in harm’s way and their families.
Had a bad windstorm a few nights ago that laid down our five acres or so of sweet corn. But it’s almost all stood back up now. It’ll be fine. Should have our first ears within a couple of days now.
Eating new potatoes, and fresh tomatoes and peppers, and onions, and broccoli, and this and that.
Can’t beat it!
We have Geranium maculatum growing here and it is certainly immune to Japanese beetles but there are no piles of seduced and slaughtered JBs underneath - no diminishment of the eating pooping mating orgies going on in my hollyhocks, or in the raspberry leaves being turned into lace.
Why is there no predator that eats JBs? The birds don’t touch them, and I once spent ten minutes teasing a praying mantis into taking one - it finally speared it, tasted it, and shook it frantically off its claw - ick! ick!
When I captured them in water and crushed them, the ants ate for a few days, and then refused furthre offerings.
I have always read traps only attract more, but tomorrow I will give traps a go.
There have been two "attacks" on the garden. Last week, I thought the deer were nipping off the ends of my Sun Sugar that were getting beyond the wire it is growing on. I was putting up plastic netting when I noticed what looked like some kind of "poop". That got me to looking closer & I found 3 huge green tomato hornworms muching on that poor plant. I checked the rest of the tomatoes & found another one on my Mr. Stripey. Those 4 hornworms had not been parasitized by wasps (that I could tell) so they ended up squished. The Sun Sugar tomato looks really happy since the 3 hornworms were taken off - I'm getting pretty orange cherry tomatoes every day now.
The next "attack" is still ongoing. The crows, about a week ago, started scouting out the garden. Since the tomatoes were still very green, I figured I had some time. Last year, the crows were pecking out the pulp of ripe tomatoes. Monday, I saw crows land on a board fence very near the garden & got a funny feeling that the ones I wasn't seeing (there are 7) were up to no good. When I went out the door to shoo them off, 3 flew out of the raised beds. One had my biggest, prettiest green Roma in its beak. I found a pecked up zucchini & a pecked up Black Beauty eggplant. No one else was around at the time - if they had been, they'd probably have seen steam coming out of my ears & blue smoke from the (ahem) not-so-nice things I was saying about those crows.
I won't go into the details, but last year I had to put up plastic mesh/metal post fencing that, although it kept the crows out, hindered me in getting to the garden as well - it was a total pain & made mowing around the beds a miserable task. I have taken some pieces of plastic netting and draped them over the tomato plants for now, but I'm working on a fence idea that will be made in panels of plastic mesh/pvc that I can easily move to mow & also set up in different configurations. I could also use them for trellises when not being used as fencing. I am going to try making the fencing for one raised bed this weekend and see how it goes - if it works, I'll for sure do the 2nd bed & maybe even a third.
In the meanwhile, I made a "dead crow" dummy (I didn't feel like spending $69 to buy one) & hung it near the garden. I don't think the crows are fooled, but they haven't been coming as frequently since I've had it up ... they usually arrive by 8 a.m. & maybe come back 2-3 times in the morning, then show up again between 3-4. I haven't seen them in the afternoons at all and I only had to shoo them off twice this morning. The collective noun for a group of crows is a "murder" of crows .... apt name because they can really murder plants/gardens, grape vines, etc. Always something going on in the garden!
5-6 nice Amish paste tomatoes every day are harvested from our raised bed vines. No sign of wilt or rust...
Peppers are doing well. We’ll have out 3rd ration of jalapeño poppers this weekend.
For the first time ever, I hear no crickets. [No! not *that* Euphemism]
We had *peepers* this spring, per usual, but not for as long as we usually do.
But there are no crickets chirping at night. Not one. Seems strange.
Should I panic? Call the EPA? hilLIEry?
When you sow a lying victim entitlement mentality and resentment, and plant a root of bitterness, and water and fertilize it with more deception then you reap the fruit thereof of insurrection and anarchy, murder, leading to dictatorship in which the devil reigns thru his lying proxy servants.
But in the literal world of gardening my tomato and butternut squash plants are growing, thank God, although they both are just beginning to have blossoms (but i only saw one bee), because i started them in April and May from seed inside, and lack the amount of warmth and sun for normal growth.
However, this month i gave away my last squash that i harvested after ripening on the vine last Sept/Oct, and placed in the back hall, and 9 months later it was still good. Glory to God!
I’m about to give up on my garden. We’ve only had a couple of rainy days since March and it’s been very hot. I got one tomato off of each of my better girl plants and then they died. I water them every day, but it’s not enough.
My jalapenos are doing quite well, though.
Got much work done in the garden the past few days. Nephew Sam came over on Saturday and helped me dig potatoes and garlic, and pull weeds. Potato crop was one of the best I've had. A bit over 20 gallons from 75 foot of row. The garlic also did very well this year.
I tilled up where the garlic and spuds came out, and seeded 60 foot of sweet corn. I'm going to mat the remaining space and plant a couple hills of summer squash.
The Russian cucumbers that I planted a couple weeks ago all drowned, so I tilled up and planted more of those.
I picked about half a bushel of cucumbers and half a dozen ripe tomatoes. That first tomato of the season always tastes so good!
First planting sweet corn, peppers, basil, okra, butternut squash and green beans are all doing well. The japanese beetles got into the green beans on Saturday. On Sunday I declared war on beetles and loaded the sprayer with liquid Sevin. No more beetles in the beans.
I put out four of the Spectracide beetle traps two weeks ago. So far I've trapped 25 gallons of the dang things. They slowed down a little while it was rainy, but picked right back up as soon as the sun came out.
The onions that I dug up in Dad's back yard are making bulbs of little baby onions on top of their stems.
