[Diana in Wisconsin]

After leaving here at noon, yesterday, Beau and Crew stayed overnight at our cabin last night (6 hours north) and are now on their way to Ontario. Black Bear hunting (with dogs) and some fishing. They have about an 8 hour drive, barring any issues.

Minimal 'coon damage to the garden last night - one red cabbage dug up, but easily tucked back in. Mandan is on the Canada trip, so I no longer have a good guard dog out in the garden. :( I have been completely abandoned! Yippee! ;)

My neighbor surprised me last night with 22 pints of fresh blueberries and a gallon bag of raspberries. She's got an 'in' with the Amish who buy in bulk. Looks like this will be a regular thing, so she says if I do the canning, and give her back half, I can keep the rest of whatever she brings me. Score! She hinted around at Blueberry Jam, so that's easy enough. Our other neighbor got all the strawberries, as he's the Strawberry Jam Man around here. I think my neighbor is setting herself up pretty well, actually!

So, that's first on the docket, to get those blueberries frozen and probably make a pie with the raspberries to freeze. I have a few hanging baskets to plant and I will replant any bean seeds that have 'mysteriously' disappeared, and all the dog/mule/chicken chores that need doing around here. It is HOT and HUMID with rain on and off all week, so dogs are being rotated in and out of the exercise yard EARLY, today. I finally turned on the A/C. Screw it, LOL!

Tonight I take Emma Jolene to her Bench Show, so keep your paws crossed for her to win it all!

[left that other site]

Blueberries!

I LOVE ‘em!

[mairdie]

LOVE getting your garden updates. Keep ‘em coming.

[metmom]

Did you ever use Pomona’s Universal pectin?

You can make large batches. I would do 12 cups of blueberries, 4 C sugar, some cinnamon, and cook it down.

It made 7 pints of jam, just enough to fit a canner. And it all set beautifully.

You can also to sugar free.

Pomona’s Universal Pectin
https://pomonapectin.com/

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

Good Morning Gardeners! Back for my last coffee after planting sun flowers and morning glories along a fence line. My wife remembers her Mother's morning glories along that same spot which came back year after year, even after she passed. Both she and her mother died in hospice care here, sad but beautiful in a way.

Yesterday I harvested the garlic scapes for the first time ever. They are quite tasty. I made a big salad with them and all kinds of lettuce from the garden. I also made Garlic scape pasta, which turned out great. Next time I'll chop the scapes smaller though.

We got just a trace of rain last evening. I'll check the rain barrels later, I'm going to finally try eating some of the chick weed I'm growing, and thin the radishes a bunch more.

Happy June everyone!

[Albion Wilde]

My neighbor surprised me last night with 22 pints of fresh blueberries and a gallon bag of raspberries.... She hinted around at Blueberry Jam, so that's easy enough. Our other neighbor got all the strawberries, as he's the Strawberry Jam Man around here.

Great story! Mmmmm! Bet it will smell sweet around your kitchen jam factory!

[Albion Wilde]

Good Friends Help You Grow:

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Diana! The weekend! Enjoy your Berry Good Day! May S.O. have a safe and enjoyable trip to our North Coast neighbor!

You reminded me that I need to take a trip to the Local U-Pick and get 5 or 6 pounds of blueberries. I have Aronia berries, good-4-You-2 but they are NOT the same!

June is a Good Dairy month because everyone (everyone bovine) has been out and eating from Green Pasture and the milk tastes better than Winter Milk that you get with Stored Hay!!

[Pollard]

Work work work for me. This work weekend is extra rough. Started work at 5am, worked during breaks and lunch on a project, worked on it more after I got off at 3:30 and just got home at 7:30.

They got a new machine in and I volunteered to take the huge crate away, plus the small one. Base of the big one is 8’ x 10.5’ — basically a big heavy pallet and is now sitting on the frame of my 2 ton truck. Plan to put as many 1950-53 Chevy truck body parts on it as O can fit. Fenders, doors, bumpers etc. Part of general clean up around here.

Crates are 8’ tall too so there’s metric versions of 2x4s with plywood on them. I’m guessing 8mm plywood.

All of these crates from a Japanese machine company have a steel frame inside. Someone already got that and the one before and the one before that. I’m taking the wood from this one to get brownie points so I can call dibs on the next steel frame. Also helps that I just made it 1 year here so I’m evidently a keeper. I’ll make use of the wood of course.

Maters are doing good. Taters are doing good. Tractor is doing good but I just had the mower deck belt break so I need 1 or more.

My twins, the riding mowers, have mower deck issues. Three blade spindles plus two idler pulleys and all buy one spindle are locked up. Need new fuel hose from tank to carb and the tank is on the back while the engine is up front. The routing of that fuel line is not obvious and the tank is enclosed in the heavy sheet metal backend.

[Paul R.]

I spread some Cayenne pepper around some tomato plants I just upgraded to bigger pots. Somehow, a tiny speck of the dust got in my right eye.

My goodness, if it’s even 1/2 as effective on the varmints...

Next time I’ll wear goggles.

[Augie]

Yet another soggy weekend here in the Middle of Misery. The ground was starting to settle up after the 4.25" we got last week. After yesterday's deluge the gauge was almost full. Not good!

This was the view looking out the barn door at my garden patch. Swamped.

So while that was going on I decided it was time to install the top-end rebuild kit in the air pump that supplies the diffusion ring in my pond. Found one piston rod bearing to be in rough shape. The pump was a re-man when I bought it, and it has always sounded a little rough when in operation. And naturally, new piston rod assemblies are no longer available from the manufacturer. They're checking to see if they have any good used ones on hand. If that comes up goose eggs I'll see about buying new bearings and installing those in the old rods. I've got all the right tools to do the job if I can come up with the parts.

But things aren't all bad. I got the botox injections in my neck and upper back on Wednesday. I felt like hammered hell for the next two days. Sawbones says it takes around six weeks for the full effects to be realized, but it seems to have taken a bit of the edge off, so I'm hopeful.

The snap peas that turned out to be snow peas are loving the wet/cool-ish weather. I picked a gallon off of them Saturday and probably have another half gallon ready to pick now. The beets in the raised bed are doing great - won't be long until it's time to pull them and make pickled beets. Cabbages are growing fast - there will be fermented sauerkraut this time. The chinese cabbages have finally taken off so it's looking good for a kimchi run too.

Tomatoes are suffering from too much water, as are the peppers. Cukes/squash/gourds are loving it. 2nd planting sweet corn looks good. Pole beans are up. Collards and basils are up in starter cells.

I took a shovel to the spud patch to see what was going on there. Some sort of burrowing varmint, likely voles, ate pretty much all of them. The few I found had been gnawed on. Next time I'll put them in a raised bed and see how that works.

[numberonepal]

Y’all have any advice for bunnies? If I look at the top of one more beautiful blee pepper and then see seeds on the ground I’m going to bust a blood vessel.