Just piddling around and cleaning out some drawers, straighening up the pantry, and double checking what needs to be used up next to see what's for supper.
Have another batch of green beans to can, and am at a crucial stage, so I'll post and come back a little later.
Will post the sourdough biscuit recipe for those who have asked. Experiment is not over, but on the back burner for now. Had to get serious about exercise, and couldn't continue the walking due to feet problems, so I am falling back on the old reliable swimming.
Takes an hour to drive to the nearest pool, and I spend 2 hours doing as much as I can and resting in between, so that's 4 hrs 3 times a week. It also means I get to visit stores on the way home that have wider variety than we have here.
I dug up some potatoes, and bought one of those microwave potato chip makers at super Walmart. Now that was some good stuff! Absolutely fat free which will help with my cholestrol check coming up at the end of the month.LOL
Still eating tomatoes from Mr. Indoor tomato plant, and have 2 more from the outdoor patio tomato. Lettuce is all gone, will have to plant more. Mystery squash/melon plant is growing fine. Hope I get some fruit to see what it is.
Blackberries, blueberries, and dewberries had almost zero yield this year. We have 1 cold hardy kiwi maturing. Hope we get to see what it tastes like.
Hubby's corn is doing terrific, mine not so much. Have been hauling buckets of water to my gardens. Pain in the you know what. We are getting about 15 gallons a day from the airconditioner to supplement the rain water collected. Have had a decent year rain wise, so we are heading into the dry season with a pretty good supply.
Hope every one is enjoying the holiday. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the List. I think I have everyone updated who wanted to be added, but if you wanted a ping and didn’t get one, please let me know.
Herb garden bolting in very hot weather with too little rainfall. Now, here in the Northeast, we have rain on the 4th, lol.
Checked my cukes today. Thought I had a few ready to pick for pickles and whoa, 2 nice perfect mature cukes. I tried bush cukes for the first time and they have just exploded. The bush cukes are shorter and fatter, yummy. About ready to pick my first banana pepper. Happy 4th to all. This thread is my favorite place at FR.
Happy Independence Day, FRiends!
Tomaters are doing real good. Mini SunSugar and Pears taste great. The beefsteak and beef masters, the big ones,, its just starting but so far what has been tasted is what fresh is all about.
Looks like I will be down on Asian pear but up on Fuji apple harvest, long as the squirrels respect the netting.
Bon appetit and HaPPy 4th of July All!!
I finally got a section of my shade cloth up over my tomato garden last week. My wife was on vacation and was a very big help. I have two other sections of 6’X 15’ to put up. I can tell it helps with the temps and the searing sun during the afternoons. I just hope it survives any windy T-Storms that brew up the rest of this summer.
The temps here in East Central Mississippi have been wonderful today, 64 early morning and 85 as a high, so far, this afternoon with very clear blue skies.
Seems like my San Marzano’s are going to be my best producers this year. I wish I had planted 10 or more of them!
I hope y’all have had a great Fourth. Nothing special happening for us this year just relaxing and enjoying the beautiful weather.
Have had to pay for help, can do a little, still hacking through the mess from letting everything go from last year.
Here are my Bristol black raspberries I grew from wintersowing some seed. It is a real briar patch, very thick so weeds can't get thru (yet), need to prune out some old canes. Fruit on second year canes.
I sorted, washed and put a little sugar and got two small bags to freeze, about a quart total. Am planning to make a black raspberry meringue pie I found a recipe for on the net (you cook, strain out the seeds, make a curd like lemon meringue pie). The recipe calls for more lemon juice than I want in it so I'll just use a little and dilute with water. The raspberries should be robust enough in flavor, always got tasty pies if I had quality ones to work with.
I so wish I had the strength to grow more but with no help except paid, just can't do it.
I ate my first tomato of the season this week. It was a Cherokee Purple. There is a long time span between good tomatoes. I will be having an Azoychka and a Coustralee today.
We couldn’t ask for a better 4th of July in southern Ohio today, in the mid 70’s with a slight breeze. I got a cucumber and radishes out of the garden today, plus ongoing cherry tomatoes off the patio. This week I hung an old motorcycle tire on the shed and put three Spider plants in it. The old Dunlop k181 carried me on many adventures safely.
In other news, I've started on new raised beds on the west side of the house. They'll be 12ft x 3ft x12in high.I'll have to enclose the entire area to keep out the chickens and deer though.
Strawberries finished for now, and so am I: hit 98 today.
Temperature; not me! LOL
The (backordered) greenhouse cover finally arrived yesterday, a little late for spring seed starting.
Stuff is growing; potatoes are flowering; I’m sitting in front of the A/C, and all is well with the world, if you discount & ignore....
We are lush here. I mean lush. Just north in the I-80 corridor they have severe, scary flooding. We were dry last year, had lots of rain, but less than north of us this year, and it’s about perfect. Almost jungle like, kinda like going down south when we were kids. Not too hot so far, once we warmed up it’s really been a near perfect summer so far.
Got onions and carrots, the tops of which are almost 2 ft tall. Everything is oversized and going crazy. Corn growing over a foot a week. One of the best gardens I’ve ever had.
Some great looking gardens out there!
Very hot & muggy early this week (Philly suburbs), then we had some needed rain and it’s cooled down a lot.
Pulled all the radishes — decided to quick-pickle about half of them ... opened a jar today and phew! it was quite pungent, almost kimchi-like. I thought something went wrong, but did a quick internet check and evidently they just do that, and were actually quite tasty. Going to reseed the empty section with more radish seeds tomorrow, and then space in more in 2 weeks, so we aren’t overwhelmed with so many, all at once.
The first tomato is starting to turn over to orange & there are a ton more on all 5 plants ... we picked a couple of nice green ones to fry up and they were good, but the corn-meal crust was too crunchy/dry/bland (recipes would be appreciated).
Lettuce & herbs are doing great, anything we’ve cut is coming back fast & more abundant — the 1st zucchini’s are almost ready, cucumbers are going well, peppers have picked up a bit & the watermelon vine has several flowers. Grapes and berries are doing their thing too. Fun!
Greeting fellow gardeners! Hope Y’All all had a safe, happy, & delicious Fourth.
We made the drive home Thursday night with a lot of trepidation, but traffic really wasn’t too bad even though there was a thunderstorm to drive through.
My leafy critters are being “veddy veddy good to me”. Sea grape is roaring back & the Allamanda is coming back, too. The turnips are even leafier. Whether that means we’ll get some noms out of them, I don’t know. The Valley Cats are just really looking good.
How cool about the water from the AC, greeneyes! Ours (overflow) keeps the grass green around it. I never thought about tapping it as a source for water.
God Bless & have a great weekend!
I’m growing these BLACK tomatoes. No kidding, they are black!
Problem is, how do I know if they’re ripe? They are kinda hard, but getting much bigger than tomatoes when they first start...
What kind of air conditioner do you have and how do you
collect the water? Boy, I’m interested, I need all the water I can get.
It’s been a busy ten days at my place.
#3 Son, DiL, and #1 Grandson were down from Ft. Drum all of last week. I’d forgotten how busy little people can be. #1 Daughter is in from MCAS Iwakuni.
We’ve been out on the river twice, two nights at the racetrack, retrieved Nanner from the tractor doc, bought a horse trailer with living quarters, and threw a whopping big 4th of July party.
I did get the last of my taters out last week, but don’t think I’ve set foot in the garden for the last three days.
I picked a handful of ripe tomatoes last week. They didn’t even make it to the house. We ate em right there. I should check to see if there are any more ready.