I’m fixing to order some sugar beets and mangels to grow this fall for my chickens. Shumway’s has them in bulk, so yay. We’ll see if they work out.
No rain for nearly a month here and ~95+ every day has taken its toll on the garden. Keeping stuff watered is time consuming. Thank goodness for soaker hoses though. I’ve had one on the apple trees today.
Got a bunch of fig trees from various places last fall and this spring and some of them even have little figs on them already. Hubby loves fig preserves so maybe we’ll have enough to make a few jars of that.
We’ve planted a 10X50ft section of Painted Mountain corn (Johnny’s and Southern Exposure) and a 10X15ft section of Red Mesilla peanuts (touted to make a crop in 90 days) from this guy:
http://jandlgardens.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=70
We’ve had a sprinkler and soaker hoses on those to keep them damp and look to have ~100% germ on the peanuts and about 85% on the corn. Which isn’t bad I guess given the heat and likely bird predation on the corn. Should be able to harvest both sometime in mid/late October.
I’ve found a 75 day pumpkin at Adaptive Seeds that I’m going to order this afternoon. Still enough time for that to make here before frost and might even avoid the vine borer problem altogether since it’s already so late in the year. Will try their Saskatoon white corn too, planted in mid August to avoid crossing with the painted mountain. Plus, they appear to have some open pollinated SE and SH2 corn varieties so I’ll have to get those too for next year.
Been eating cucumbers like mad and patty pan squash as those are the only things that don’t have their panties in a bunch with the hot weather. There’s something trancendantal about cucumber slices dipped in Italian dressing. Should have planted some Asparagus Beans but just didn’t get around to it drat drat drat.
Still need to plant some cowpeas and will try to do that this afternoon late. Zipper Cream should have time to make. And some more bush string beans along with some bush limas. Trying to sort out varieties and which garden plot so I can possibly save seeds from all that and not have any inadvertent crosses.
Ordered garlic from Forever Yong too. Have had really great luck with them in the past. They carry varieties that do well in warmer winter areas.
Haven’t posted much lately, been busy busy busy. I’ve taken up crochet. Everyone in the family and some extended family are getting afghans for Christmas :P
I used to crochet quite a bit so that when watching TV I didn’t feel like I was totally wasting time. Now, I don’t watch much TV, as I just hit the TiVo/DVR and think I’ll watch it later. Later I start to watch it and then go to sleep. LOL
Nice to hear from you. Thanks for the update. I’ll have to check out those peanuts. Mine are 120 days, I think. The weather never did get to the point where I thought they would do well. Hubby was going to plant some, but decided against it. Best I remember they did not like wet or cool weather here in Missouri, and that’s what we’ve had a lot of this year.
Please keep us posted on your gardening and crocheting too!