Our Kwik Trip makes the BEST already-prepared Taco meat sold in a tube like ground beef. Cheap, easy, delicious. Freezer-ready, so I always have some on hand.
Posted on 08/01/2026 5:02:22 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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I've done that at least a couple times for duplicate posts I accidentally made.
Ah, I should swing by Walmart today after church. I’m low on the Expert Gardener garden soil, having used up a lot of it...
Up here at 43+ degrees latitude, we have the “early” maples already turning.
I had pumpkin volunteers this year fun a store bought pumpkin I threw in the bushes.
Picked one and gave it to my daughter and have 1 more ready to pick.
I lost all my as decorations, tree, lights etc in the wildfire....except for dad’s 1948 Lionel Train set which I had not yet moved into thr metal building!
I scored a xmas tree at an estate sale and I am planning on one side of the tree being the fire scorched and melted stuff used as ornaments and the other side is going to be regular decorations...or I might do a 2nd tree for the fire theme.
All good news except for the Zinnia. Try the smaller Dahlia you can grow from seed - you might have better luck with those, and they have a similar look.
‘Bishop’s Children’ is a nice one with red and orange and yellow blooms on burgundy stems. The ‘Figaro’ mix is a good one, too.
I usually have Zinnia in the garden, but I am going back to my tried and true variety, ‘Magellan.’ When I grow the big ones, they just get floppy and look awful. ‘Magellan’ is compact, but still decent for cutting and it’s very resistant to mildew.
The cedar mulch seems to have worked well as far as fig beetles - I’ve only seen two so far - and one was flying out of my yard. I’ve had horrible infestations in past years.
I didn’t get a good fig crop this year - we had an unseasonable heat wave in late March - temps of over 100 degrees for several days - which caused all the fruit blossoms to drop off - not a single orange is setting and I think it got most of my figs as well. That and my tree trimmers cut back my fig tree which stunted the harvest - even after I’d told them not to touch it...
There’s always next year! High today: 95 and bone dry.
Our Kwik Trip makes the BEST already-prepared Taco meat sold in a tube like ground beef. Cheap, easy, delicious. Freezer-ready, so I always have some on hand.
I bought two of the ‘Pennington’ brand for $5, each. Don’t remember the other prices but they were all a number of dollars cheaper - even the Miracle Grow soils.
I noticed some in-town Maple trees partially turning - but that was due to two weeks of ridiculous heat and no rain. I can see why they were confused.
I love Spring and I love Fall. Winter is tolerable because I like winter sports, ice fishing, snowmobiling and snowshoeing.
Summer seems to be nothing but work, Work, WORK around here!
I’m at 42.99 degrees latitude - never thought to look before! ;)
I have some sort of ‘squash volunteer’ in one of my compost piles - I think it’s most likely a Butternut Squash. It has a lot of competition this season from weeds, so we’ll see who wins this round. ;)
At least your making Lemons into Lemonade from that disaster! :)
Re: zinnias
I grow them. I had 2 raised beds of them at the old house for years & did the same here at the new house last year. I start them from seed in raised beds. Both houses have lots of deer & I protected the newly emerged seedlings up until they were about 6 inches or so tall. I have fencing I made with pvc & plastic netting (now switched to wire) that I would lay over the raised beds, about 6-8 inches above the dirt. Once the young plants got to the fencing, I removed it.
Additionally, once I planted veggies, I had a perimeter fence with the homemade pvc panels & that kept the deer out. Here at the new house, I did not put up any perimeter fence around the zinnias & the deer left them alone once they were 6-8”. We have rabbits, but the raised beds are high enough they don’t jump in.
I did plant zinnia seeds in a raised bed yesterday- soil is warm so that should help. I might run out of time to get blooms - from planting to blooms, depending on variety & conditions, it can take 45 - 90 days. I figure August & September will be ok, but could get an early frost in October, As soon as the seedling appear, I’ll cover the bed with fencing to keep the deer off.
I did grow some dahlias last year in a 3 x 3 raised bed & I did fence that bed because deer will eat dahlias.
Dont forget the lime wedge and the sour cream.
And a F’n racoon are all of my (about 30) watermelons while I was out of town for a week!!
At lady they left my cantaloupe alone.
My 1st cantaloupe was 5.5lbs and super sweet and juicy!
I dint hand a compost pile because too many racoons n other aggravating things invade it so I had to put it fat away from the house.
When I get a tractor I will probably revisit it.
My woodchip mulch that I get for free from the dump is doing such snood job in my garden that 2 of my 6 garden beds have dark black soil after 4 years and I started with heavy clay soil and just put a 2-3 inch layer of garden soil on top of it.
Now I have 6-10 inches of dark healthy soil in each bed and 2 of them over a foot of it.
I even saw my 1st worm this year....zero worms die to the clay soil until now.
My chicken coop project is stalled because I have to finish the high fence around it. I have to build the gate then put up the fencing..... should have some chickens this fall but the garden and other stuff had kept me too busy to finish it.
And my youngest of 2 (the son) finally moved out so my costco bill had been cut in half!!!
I don’t know how much I’ll get done today, after church. Light showers are on the docket — one must have passed through recently, as the sidewalk out back is wet & the cars have rainwater on them. Possible t-storms this afternoon, but nothing severe. The high may stay under 80 deg. F, and humidity is moderate, so hopefully there will be some dry time.* Monday will be warmer but dryer (no rain) and still pretty darn decent for early August: In fact, the next few days look “tolerable”, compared to what we usually get in early August - misery! (Hot, humid, and no rain.) The predominant corn and soybeans around here look VERY good except in a few fields that flooded repeatedly in heavy rains.
If not, I made an interesting discovery: I “de-bitterized” collard greens by boiling some in a large stainless steel pot for several minutes, draining it, then adding a dollop of lemon juice and sugar. That really took out the bitterness of the collard greens - a little too much, if anything - I thought maybe I needed less sugar, but proceeded: I brought that back to a boil after adding some cubed chicken thigh meat (~ 3/4” cubes), soy sauce, a little ground ginger, and one small slice of green jalapeno pepper to zip things up a bit more. Once the chicken was cooked, leaving the hot broth in the pot, I added some diced sweet red and yellow peppers, diced Vidalia onion, a little Opo (about 1/2” cubes), a little chopped broccoli (was on sale at a local grocery, and a diced 3” Early Girl tomato. I brought that back to a boil, did a taste test - Hmmm, very slightly hot, but otherwise a bit bland. Another dollop of soy sauce fixed that. (I try to stay a bit under typical Chinese restaurant levels of soy sauce.)
Not bad at all — the jalapeno & ginger gave just a bit of zip - nowhere close to what my wife likes sometimes, but fine for me. :-)
I still have quite a bit of the collard greens left, and the greens did not seem to mush up with the 1st boil, so I may try boiling some, draining, rinsing, and chilling it, and try it in a salad?
Looking at our closest Wally World online, I don’t see a reduction on the Expert Gardener (garden soil) but I do see moderate drops on Miracle Grow, etc. I’ll just swing by later - need to get outta here shortly...
Ha! We’re both biased. Only thing better than Michigan in August is... Nope, I have nothing...
Found out there are surf reports for the Great Lakes - example: https://www.surf-forecast.com/breaks/Grand-Haven/forecasts/latest/six_day
Not planning on doing it myself, but interesting.
Those lakes can get pretty rough at times - but the inland surfer boys love them.
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