July 2024 - Garden And Stuff
July 15, 2024
Hi all. You may remember the problems I had with last year's garden. So many things wouldn't grow that I gave up in July to let the soil rest. After the rest and the addition of some organic matter in the form of several cart loads of grass clippings from the yard last summer, almost everything is growing normally again. I say almost because for some reason I still can't grow zucchini. I tried this year and the plants came up healthy, but something killed them before they fruited. The squash bugs weren't very bad on them at all, so I'm kind of at a loss to explain it. Maybe next year.
Anyway, here's how things look at the moment. The empty spaces are where potatoes, carrots, beets and turnips have already been harvested. The spaces will soon be replanted with fall stuff.
Trellised cucumbers on the left, a short row of beets and a glimpse of some onions on the bottom. Trellised cantaloupes in the upper right.
Beautiful cukes. Boy I missed these last year.
This shot is just to show the space-saving benefit of trellising things like cucumbers. Compare their footprint to the beets growing next to them.
Replacement cucumbers coming up for the fall season.
Trellised cantaloupes.
More cantaloupes, on the ground.
Only a few tomatoes again this year. I don't need that many when I'm not going to process any for sauce or the freezer. Those are marigolds between them. They seem to help with aphids. The plant on the end that needs tying up is a cherry tomato.
Green tomatoes. Only a few have ripened so far.
A close up of some cherry tomatoes.
Pepper plants.
The greenhouse made a mistake and gave me what I think are two poblano plants that should have been regular bell peppers. The flesh isn't hot, so no big deal.
The other two plants are regular bell peppers.
Here's this year's corn.
Plenty of ears silking out. It won't be long now.
These trellises will have peas on them for the fall. I'll be planting them soon, along with more carrots and beets in the foreground. Those are yellow onions at the bottom, about ready to come out.
Here's Bella having an adventure in the apple tree by the garden. She's 3 months old today.
Here's Bella chewing on the apple tree by the garden, lol.
Potted flowers on the deck.
Potted flowers out in the yard.
Some of the flowers around the house.
Bella again.
Playfully practicing her I'm-a-badass pose. 
Play time with a laser pointer.
This is one of the neighbor's cats. Orange like Bella, but a big male. He's incredibly friendly and affectionate.
He comes over once every 3 or 4 days for a few treats. He strolls causally into the garage, meowing to announce his presence, and then hops up onto the chest freezer to wait for them, lol.
Here's a wren chick that fledged just this morning from the birdhouse hanging on the front porch, part of the second brood from that bird house this year. Note the short tail, fresh from the cramped nest.
Elsewhere in the yard, other wrens are still calling for mates to try for a second brood.
Here's a female house finch, looking for a drink on a hot day.
Here's a robin in the fountain bath.
I'm not sure what kind of bird this is, maybe one of the greenish-yellow warblers, but I thought I'd include it because of the interesting timing of the shot.
That's it for now. Bella says thanks for dropping by.
Summertime, summertime, sum-sum-summertime.
Post shots of your own gardening stuff if you want to.
You do a fantastic job with your garden, and you're so lucky to have such a beautiful property which you make even more beautiful. One of these days I'll walk over to my wife's mini-farm and take some photos. I'm going to see if I can get her to plant cantelope.
Thanks, Buzz. I bet melons would do fine there, as warm as it is. Cold, sweet cantaloupe is such a treat in the heat of late summer and early fall. For me, they're every bit of a must-grow as cucumbers.
The ones sold in stores around here are often hit or miss. Sometimes they're ok, but sometimes they have no flavor. The ones I grow are always good. Totally worth adding to her garden, if she has the room.
neighbor's cat has got you trained...
Yeah, lol.
Looks fantastic, Dig! We didn't put much in this year compared to years past. Too many home projects... The tomatoes are looking good though something killed the cherry tomatoes. I'm expecting a big crop of cherries but not so many apples.
Mmmm, cherries. My new little peach tree put on a few fruits this year, but birds pecked holes in most of them. Not sure what I'm going to do about that in the future.
Looks great, Dig, and I love the cucumbers, in fact, I can taste them now.
I've already given about 50 away. I'll eat one for you tonight.
Good looking garden and cats.
very dry here but getting a few tomatoes
I keep hearing about heat waves on the coasts. It's been rather mild here, with a decent amount of rain so far. It's hot now but still not as bad as it could be.
Doing anything with your greenhouse this year?
The greenhouses were damaged by very strong winds just before I was going to put plants in. I fixed the smaller one, reinforced the frame and built a strong trellis inside and new door. things were delayed but got some early tomatoes. Just picked a few Early Girls and cherrys to go with supper
Due to a sore knee I did not plant as much or the way I wanted to. I found some ways to use the tractor to get things done. Dug holes for tomatoes with a backhoe,
Getting a few peppers and Okra but all the vine crops dried up. I put a very thick mulch around all the plants and that helped.
Today the town has put a watering restriction out.
Sorry to hear about the greenhouses. Glad that you have the one repaired.
I can relate to the knee thing. I have issues with mine as well, but lately they've been feeling ok.
Hopefully your weather will improve soon.
nice shots of the little tiger and your produce jungle too!
Thanks, Dev. I didn't post earlier in the spring because after last year I wasn't sure if anything was going to grow.
The power company finally filled the ruts they made. They did a decent enough job, but the dirt they brought had rocks in it, lol. I had to pick them out before mowing. I can't really fault them, though. There's not a lot of rock free dirt to be had in the Ozarks.
they should have put down topsoil, but went cheap instead ...
I'm just glad it's done. It'll probably be grassed back over in a few more weeks.
I'm thinking you don't need me to tell you how to grow any grass...
your cat radiates personality. I had a tiger cat 50 years ago, his name was roger.
Morning...ripper another sane post and a good way to start my day..
Great photos dig the veggie garden and your yard is an absolute credit to you..
Plus love the photo's of Bella she is growing fast and will be into everything..like how the neighbours cat comes over for a visit..
My brother's neighbours cat does that. Doopey arrives approx every 6 week for some biscuits and milk..he is 18 years old and then just goes back over the fence..
Maybe if you go out at night with a torch you may find what is mowing off your plants...
Thanks, Shona.
They weren't cut or chewed through or anything. They just wilted and died. I pulled up the roots and looked at them and the soil around them and couldn't find any bugs or larvae, so I don't have a clue what caused it.
Very impressive, you have your own produce department.
Thanks, John.
Great photos, Dig!
Your garden is totally impressive, as always.
Except for last year when a bunch of stuff wouldn't grow, lol.
The weather has been very accommodating so far this year. I've hardly had to water, and I hope that lasts. I have chances of rain for the next three days, and then it cools off again after Wednesday, so it might last for a little while longer at least.
Meanwhile, it's been in the upper 90s to low to mid 100s in my area. With no rain, of course.
We're supposed to hit 100 today. Slight chance of rain.
The town at the north end of our county had a grass fire last night that spread to a utility pole, and it knocked power out for a fairly large portion of town. So those folks were sitting for hours in this heat with no AC, nor even a fan.
I hear banjos...
When I was out yesterday I saw clouds over the mountains, possible thunderheads, and they are predicting a 20% chance of thunderstorms in the mountains later this afternoon, but that won't affect us at all.
I hear records have been falling out there up and down the coast.
It's been pretty hot. I'm staying indoors for the most part. I don't know if any records were broken in my area, but they have been in nearby areas.
I've given up on my garden for the year. Charger and I live in the same town, and as he said, it's dry. I'm just watering enough to keep my strawberry vines alive for next year.
I got a fair number of strawberries this spring. My lettuce and spinach came up, but both went bolt almost as soon as they were up, because it got hot fast here. I picked some lettuce, but it was bitter.
My cucumbers didn't even sprout this year. I guess I'm going to have to start buying plants instead of seeds.
Send rain!
That sucks about your weather, and especially about your cucumbers. This'll be the second year in a row for you without them, right? I feel for you.
Yep, 2 years. IIRC, I got one last year. Last year, they sprouted, grew, and even bloomed, but never set fruit.
It's frustrating, because I've always started them from seeds, and have generally had so many cucumbers that I was giving them away.
Yeah, seeds are usually perfectly fine for cukes. I'd suggest trying the variety Marketmore 76 next time. You can find those almost everywhere. You might even still be able to find some right now, and plant some for the fall.
Check out the image of the new cuke seedlings I have coming up above. Those pieces of 2x4 really help to conserve moisture right around the young roots by keeping the sun off the soil under them. You might want to try that, too. If you do, set the cross piece directly over the seeds until they come up, then move it just to the south of the seedlings like they are in my image, to keep shading the soil close to them without blocking their upward growth.
I had that problem with zukes in my first garden. we couldn't eat them fast enough. now I can barely stand the sight of them...
I wish I had that problem. I haven't had a glut of zucchini for 2 years. I like to slice it, blanch it, and freeze it for use in a casserole with ground beef, rice, onions, tomato sauce and cheese. I miss that dish so much I recently broke down and actually bought some zucchini from the store to make it. The horror.
... don't forget zucchini bread. I could have built an addition on the house with what I harvested. blech...
Speaking of that. Here's todays haul of 27. Help yourself, lol.
Yeah, that stuff is great. Still, I eat more of it in casseroles than in bread.
I don't plant cucumbers anymore, in fact the farmers in our area frown upon garden grown cukes for gardeners don't treat them for downy mildew which causes them to spray for it more than necessary.
So I wait for the machines to start harvesting and go after the ones dropped in the fields with permission of course.
Machine harvest is almost a week away and we have a machine sitting in our yard that the farmer was suppose to have a tractor ready to mount it on and he hasn't come across one yet. It'll take a few days to mount the machine, especially if we have to do any modifications and he is quickly running out of time.
maybe the first 100 loaves...
Although I've posted it before, I don't know if you've seen the story my father used to tell, and \t's a true story. The city in which I was born and grew up was Hamilton, Ontario. There was a huge farmers' market right in the middle of downtown, behind the city hall. Here is a vintage image of it:
My father was shopping there one day, and he swears he overheard this dialogue between a woman shopper and a farmer selling his vegetables. Remember this was at least three quarters of a century ago.
How much are your cucumbers?
Ten cents each.
That's too dear, the supermarket across the road sells them 2 for a quarter.
Lady, if the supermarket can afford to lose money, so can I. You can have 2 for a quarter.
And the rain blew right by us again. There were 2 fires in the county today, one in an orchard. Then the temperature dropped and the wind picked up, and I was sure we were going to get a downpour, but the clouds just blew on by.
They issued a flood watch here this morning, but I haven't seen a drop all day. There's still supposed to be some coming in tonight, though.
We got a little rain today. Might get some more tonight.
I got a little this morning, about half an inch.
I heard that somewhere down around Branson got 7 inches in 3 hours yesterday. I guess that's what all the flood watches were about. What a mess that must have been.
Wow, that would cause some flooding.
I don't know how much we got yesterday. Enough that my yard was wet. It sprinkled a bit last night, but if it ever rained any harder than that, it was after I went to sleep.
living in colorado most of my life, I'm not used to seeing torrential rain come down. when the ex and I were on our honeymoon down on the texas gulf coast, it really started coming down one time. we were both so freaked out about the amount of rain accumulating on the ground, we packed up and left our condo in search of higher ground, convinced that the island we were on was soon going under water.
Turns out that 7 inches in 3 hours thing was only part of it. I went back and watched my local news DVR recording for the day after that storm and apparently the whole ordeal dumped 20 inches in places around the Mo/Ark line. That's crazy.
I don't like it when it comes down so hard you have to pull over...
Your flowers are grouped beatifully.
And Bella's bad-ass pose is the best.
Bella is hilarious. She does stuff like that way more than Buddy did. She even makes that spitting noise when she's playing with something, as if to tell it that she's not messing around one bit, haha.
Love the kitty pics!
Evening...this is cheetah..my SIL found her out in the bush last year..she was only about 4 weeks..
This is Cheetah at six weeks..
And this is her over a year old...it's a chonker and a fatty boom bah now..
Can easily see why tabbies survive very well out in the bush..she blends in so well in the garden..
What a little sweetie!
yeah!
Thanks.
Cheetah sure was young when she was found. What a cutie.
Morning...yes she was tiny and would not have survived much longer out there..
Was pure chance finding her as my SIL always turned left on the walking track but something told her to go right..so she did and less than 10 metres down the track she found Cheetah on the ground barely moving...
And the rest as they say is history..
Oh, poor kitty. That's a little heartbreaking, but with a happy ending.
Beautiful pictures - beautiful garden and flower beds
I do not grow vegetables any longer (depend on the local farmers' markets) but I still enjoy the hell out of my flower beds
Nice flowers, Robert.
Anoon..that is a dazzling display Robert..
Certainly brightens up the day..
The garden looks good this year and well ahead of mine. Last year we had a month and a half of absolutely zero rain which forced me to plant through tarps which worked out well. This year it was the exact opposite, we can't get it to stop raining, which delayed my planting and decided to use the tarps again but lost a few plants to root rot, decided not to replant and let it play out.
A friend uses one of our fields to harvest hay as repayment for work he does for us, he was able to get a couple days of dry to get it done and now some of his bales of hay (round) are still sitting in water after two weeks. We have now mowed our lawn seven times and will need to mow again this weekend, where usually by now the grass is brown from our usual mid summer dry spells.
I'm mowing more than usual, too, but the heat hasn't been oppressive yet, so I'll take the trade off. I'm supposed to get some rain tonight, and will likely be mowing again shortly after.
I see there is an article up about the Oregon fires. My brother has been skimping on the fertilizer when he plants every year and with the fires out west and the fires of Canada's tundra regions we have had free fertilizer falling from the sky every year and using less fertilizer to save money has been paying off. I know the smoke is there for the sunsets and rises have been spectacular.
I love tomatoes, but I've only been able to successfully grow cherry tomatoes. grocery store tomatoes taste like... well ... you know. fortunately my sister can grow tomatoes, but it's a 4 hour drive in order to actually eat them.
That's weird. If you could grow cherry tomatoes, the regular ones should have worked for you, too. Then again, the regular ones do seem to get more bug damage than the cherries. What was the problem you were having?
neglect.
Wellll at least you are honest..😊
it was my version of a zen garden...
water, harvest, repeat...
Lol.
Garden has outproduced me again, even though I planted half the string beans I've done in previous years, they still got ahead of me, too many cantaloupe and zucchinis, the cabbages exploded and are now useless, and the corn has outdone itself again.
We just had a storm move through yesterday that glitched our power 5 to 6 times with damaging winds and in the first 5 minutes dumped 1-1/2" of rain and by the time it was over we had over 2" of rain. My dad will be out of power for a few days because the lines are down on the ground up and down his road.
Morning B...we just got blown off the face of the earth here for two days straight...
The usual branches down etc and some poor guy got hit by a tree while in his car and killed..wrong place at the wrong time..
Hope your dad is able to manage ok without power...
We have his jenny up and running and I did the same for the neighbor who was out of the area when this hit.
This system was wide spread, there is wind damage in Michigan from the Tawas area down through the mid thumb. Not sure how far west of us, in the Tawas area, this started, but it was between West Branch and here and to the south.
Down under it is now late winter which, for us, is when we start getting snow storms with near or even blizzard conditions.
Always better to have more than not enough. Do you have to spray your cabbages? Everything I try in the cabbage family always gets eaten up by bugs.
Have the lake states have had a rougher summer than usual this year? It seems like storms up there keep making the news.
No, I really don't use anything like a pesticide or herbicide. I did however had to resort to using a copper sulfate spray for the downy mildew in my cantaloupes and also to combat brown blossom rot in my tomatoes.
This year we have seen several storms that had damaging winds and early on copious amounts of rainfall, the last few weeks have actually been kind of dry, until this last storm, and now looks that we will be going through wetter weather again.
I think it's great that you can grow cabbages without pesticide. I certainly can't, which is why I never bother with them anymore. Wormy cabbage grosses me out.
Ever made kraut with it? That's something my great grandparents did.
That's the main reason I grow it, the best stuff homemade kraut, 120 lbs. last year, so am not too disappointed the cabbages bailed on me this year still have plenty from last year.
I use to inspect all the leaves periodically for the egg masses from the cabbage worm butterfly, but since I started planting through tarps I haven't even seen the butterfly around the garden, that also goes for the bean beetle, potato beetle, tomato worm, and corn borers.
outstanding, Dig.
Just had a little rain, after I left the county fair where the produce displays were not as good as usual. The severe drought and sore knee hurt my garden, but I have lots of cherry tomatoes.
Can't beat home grown tomatoes..makes you realise what crap they sell in the supermarkets..
For me They are worth all the work
I was in Tennessee from Sunday until today. It was hot there, and the river at Pigeon Forge is really low. I don't see how resort towns manage when droughts hit, but they seemed to be doing ok. The rain here started right as I was getting close to home, and sounded great on the roof.
road trip. did you run out of teeth in your town?
Nope. I'm now at the office on my "vacation", fixing teeth.
you went down to a dead concert to trip and twirl in your new tie-dyed skirt?
It's almost September now, but I finally managed to get some zucchini growing. At the moment it's big and lush. I hope it survives long enough to give me plenty for the freezer.
The fall peas and beans suck, though. I blame crap seed from Walmart. Most of it didn't come up. One of these days I'll learn my lesson.
I'm glad this article resurfaced. looking at your cover picture of a tiny tiger in your apple tree puts a smile on my face every time...
Me too. It's probably my favorite pic of her so far. Tongue sticking out and everything, lol.
I like the picture.
who couldn't love that little furry face?
pure innocence ...
Well so much for the expected wetter weather a couple months ago, it didn't materialize. It's been quite dry and the crops have been coming off early and field work has started fires one around Bay City, Michigan burnt down a few buildings and around here a farm had someone sitting in the field to quickly extinguish any fires and he stopped three, beet harvest has seen machines breaking their digger wheels from the hard dry ground, and when we did have a good rain it was immediately soaked up and the tile mains never ran.
We had our first freeze a week ago following a week with several frosts and yesterday it was 83 degrees in the shade, I guess this would be our NA summer and we are at peak color.
Cattlemen are selling their breeding stock to meat packers instead of buying scarce feed for this winter. That is never a good sign and will inevitably lead to higher beef prices. Although, not short term...
We should've stayed in the hay production business, at the price their getting now, we would be making more per acre than cash crop.
Still getting some cherry tomatoes. Dug up and Brought a few volunteers in and a tomato came up in a planter and is medium size and I brought it in. I will try to keep them over winter.
The freeze took care of everything in the garden, except for the red beets, brussel sprouts, and broccoli, the cabbages however, as noted before, I lost them in the summer and frankly I didn't need to actually plant them at all. As for the brussel sprouts, I usually don't harvest them until December or January when the cold has driven any worms or bugs back into the ground.