http://thenewstalkers.com/dig Mon, 09 Nov 2026 14:42:42 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/3034/2026-garden-blog http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/3034 It was a gorgeous day.


It was recently very rainy, for several weeks. Rainy enough to kill my spring peas and make everything else struggle. I wasn't able to hoe much from about mid May until just a few days ago, and the garden filled up with weeds. I've been working on them, and they're almost gone now. 

I know the surface looks dry from all the hoeing (sun baked loose soil), but don't worry, I watered this evening after taking these pics.

Here's the only zucchini growing at the moment. I'll plant another, and then a third as the summer goes on.

The tomato plants are still small, but I already have fruit setting.

Same with the bell peppers. This tiny plant already has two peppers on it.

I've got marigolds and borage growing between the tomatoes this year.

Next to the tomatoes and peppers are a row of carrots and a row of Italian beans. Unfortunately, they look pretty shoddy. I blame all the rain.

Funny story – I dug a trench for the carrots, to clear rocks out from under them, but after I filled the trench back in I accidentally planted them in the bean row. I could have kicked myself. I ended up using a shovel to scrape up the soil with the seeds in it and then I sprinkled it down the row where they were supposed to be. I guess I missed a few. Here's a couple growing next to a lonely bean plant, lol.

More beans, flowering away.

The usual trellised cantaloupes, with the blackberries and a few beets in the background.

Some unhappy-looking lettuce transplants next to the beets - buttercrunch and romaine. There's some fresh seed planted in there as well.

Gracie in the beets, lol.

What's left of the spring turnips.

Turnips and beets, picked tonight.

Blackberries, not ripe yet.

A trellised cucumber that should be twice this size or more, if not for all the rain. It's also developed yellow spots on its leaves, probably early powdery mildew. I'll be planting another one soon. I don't know if this one will do very well.

Two butternut squash plants. I haven't grown these for a few years. They're supposed to be a hybrid giant variety. We'll see. As small as they are, I've already found squash bugs and eggs on them, which sucks.

Here's the corn. I've lost a few plants as usual, but the rest look decent.

Here's Pickles under the south asparagus.

And Gracie under the north asparagus.

Apples!


No peaches again this year. The freaky winter/spring transitions lately (very early heat followed by frosts) aren't working with this particular tree. I'm going to order one that blooms as late as possible next year. I'll keep this one, though. It'll probably be able to produce one of these days.

Coming back from the garden, Gracie runs.

But Pickles takes his sweet time.

And then takes a nap.

Summer flowers!






I've had lots of rabbits in the yard lately.

And there are finally wrens in the birdhouse on the way to the garden – fully two months late. Normally they're back and building nests by late April, but not this year. I have no idea what caused the delay.

A recent project – new garage shelves.

With a cat ladder on the back, lol.


I also scrapped an old garage dog house and rolling firewood rack and turned them into a rolling cart.

Voila!

Well, Gracie says that's all for now, folks.

Thanks for dropping by. See you next time.
]]> Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:43:23 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2962/quick-2025-garden-post http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2962 It's been nothing but hot and dry since about mid-July, with the exception of one week of cool weather right at the start of the month.
I've been watering daily for weeks, and there's still no rain in the forecast.

The corn got invaded by a mole before it even came up, and later got ravaged by unknown insects, but it managed to hang in there and is doing great now. Look at all those ears – two on most stalks and even three on some. I'm probably less than a week from picking. On a normal year it would have been done by now.

I'm having a hard time getting the fall beans to grow well, even though they like heat. The early leaves were getting sunburned and some died, but the rest are starting to take off with new growth now. Hopefully they make it before the frost. There are beets and carrots behind the tomatoes and peppers, with cucumbers off-screen to the left of the zucchini, and cantaloupes and corn off-screen to the right.

Tomatoes, still filling out.

Here's what I've been getting lately, along with several zucchinis that have all been eaten and aren't in the pic. The can of corn is for size reference with the cantaloupes – two different varieties, Athena and Ambrosia. Check out the size of those melons!

And, of course, a few flowers.

That's it for now. Just a quick one.
]]> Sat, 16 Aug 2025 12:33:58 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2890/garden-2024-late-summer-and-fall-wrap-up http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2890 ...
Hi, everyone.
Get this. In late July I was weed whacking around a flower bed. I had to bend over to move a loose rock out of the way, and promptly got stung on the hand by a ground wasp. What are the chances I would bend over right there where a nest was? I should have played the lottery that day.

I think they were red paper wasps. I'm lucky I only got stung once. I sprayed them the next day.

In other news, the corn was good and ready on August 4th!

Bella the garden cat.

This was the main picking. As usual, a few were still green and were left in the garden for later.

Shucking in the garage, watching the Olympics with the Dish Anywhere app on a tablet. 

Check it out – three ears on the same stem. The main ear and two suckers.

Washed and ready for eating (and the freezer). 

Bella, ready to ambush me several days later as I was getting ready to shuck a few of the late stragglers.

Here's some of what was getting picked in August. Note the zucchinis in the last two shots, the first in two years!




Bella, part monkey, loves high places.



Here we are on September 10th. A drought had set in, with no decent rain since July.

I was watering daily, and the fall plantings had come up. Here's a couple short rows of carrots, some beets, and some turnips just coming up on the right. Behind them are the zucchini plants on the left, and beans on the right. 

The fall cucumbers came up nicely, but didn't get very big. They never do in the fall. Must be the light.

The cantaloupes were almost done by then, but a couple were still ripening.

The zucchini plants were big and healthy. I'm still not sure why they wouldn't grow for me in the spring, or the whole year before, but I'm glad they finally did.



Here's some of what was picked in September.




Here's a zucchini that was hiding and made it to 18 inches long before I saw it.

Always gotta have some of it fried. Yum.

Here's a zucchini casserole that I love.

It tastes much better than it looks, lol.

Happily, there was so much zucchini that I was able to freeze plenty for several of those casseroles later this winter.
Here's how to do it. First, slice them up. You don't have to peel them if the skins are clean, but I always do anyway.

Then drop small batches in boiling water for three minutes to blanch. I do it in a big steamer pot, so all I have to do is lift the perforated section out to drain the zucchini and remove them all at once.

After the three minutes, go immediately from the boiling water to ice water. The ice is in the bowl under the strainer, to keep the zucchini separate and easy to lift out.

Arrange the slices on sheets, trying to keep them from touching.

Pop the sheets in a freezer.

When fully frozen, bag up the loose slices and toss them back in the freezer until needed. I was able to do four batches this year (with a batch being a freezer full of sheets), so I'm all set.

There was also enough to shred for the freezer. I don't blanch when doing this. I don't even know if it's possible.

It just goes straight from the food processor to the freezer.

Here's a zucchini cake made with some of it. It's the carrot spice cake recipe, but with zucchini instead of carrots.

That's homemade frosting, too. I never knew it was so easy to make until just this year. I may never buy frosting again, at least not for this kind of cake.

With fall setting in, out came the seasonal stuff.

Of course it was like Toyland for Bella. I can't wait until the Christmas tree goes up... /s

The beans started coming in near the end of September.


And several peppers were ripening to red.


Unfortunately, the zucchini plants started dying right at the end of the month, one by one. By that time I already had more than enough, so it was okay. That last plant was the strongest and actually lasted until the first freeze.

Here's the last picking of cucumbers and zucchini right before the first freeze, which, believe it or not, came on October 15th yet again. I'm pretty sure it's happened on the 15th for the last four years in a row. How weird is that? To make it weirder, this year it was also the only cold night in the middle of an unseasonably warm drought. It warmed right back up after, with nighttime lows in the 50s, and stayed that way for weeks.

That one freeze did finally give the trees some color, though. Not much this year, maybe because of the drought, but things were fairly pretty for a week or so.





As usual, the mums survived the freeze better than any of the other flowers. 

Here's a Blue-headed Vireo watching a Chipping Sparrow taking a bath. Both are migratory and were on their way south. The bird fountain was very busy during the drought, but I never got around to setting the camera out on remote to catch any of the busiest times.

Here's a cute little chipmunk.

Here's one up on top a birdhouse for some reason. Probably trying to get over to the bird feeder hanging nearby in that tree. 

Bella saw him, too.

And here she is being silly. She has this thing where she has to go and sit in any new space that opens up...

... including the dishwasher, lol.

Here we are on October 30th. The leaves were done and mostly on the ground.

Here's the stuff that survived the freeze from two weeks earlier – carrots, turnips, and a few peas on the far right. The beets were pulled right before the freeze, but I guess I forgot to take pics. The drought was still going on in this pic (check out that dead grass in the background), but that night would be the end of it. Many inches of rain would fall in the next week or so.

The tomatoes, peppers, and beans didn't make it, of course. A marigold between the tomatoes was trying to hold on, but not very well, lol.


Tomatoes that were already set on the plants kept ripening after the freeze. I guess it didn't damage the fruits themselves very badly. 

The freeze also shut the asparagus down. I have a few female plants and these are their berries. 

Dead cantaloupes.

Dead cucumbers.

The fall peas didn't do well at all this year. This small patch was all that wanted to grow.

I didn't get much, just small amounts like this a couple of times. I'm going back to my proven Miragreen seed from Gurney's next year.

Here's a few carrots and turnips on the last day of the drought.

Bella, by some carrots.

Because it warmed up so nicely after the freeze, I started working on the back deck. It was in dire need of some new stain before winter. It had been years.

I also made some new steps. New railings will have to wait until spring. I have to replace the front supporting joist and re-level the whole thing first (there's a sag in the middle), and with colder weather finally setting in I won't have time. I can't work out in the cold, lol. 

I intentionally gave the steps a low rise of only 4 inches to be easier on my aging knees. I'll lay in a landing of paving stones on the ground in front of them when I get around to it.

And here we are at the start of November, which is leaf raking time. Bella quickly discovered she likes leaping head-long into leaf piles, lol.
Here she is in one. Can you spot her?

Last week I pulled some turnips, and there were actually still some edible tomatoes on the dead vines.

Turnips make a great stew with chicken, broth, mushrooms, onions, kale, and white wine.

Just a few days ago I dug some carrots. Not the greatest, but not bad either.

Here's some with a small piece of broiled chicken.

And of course the obligatory carrot spice cake, not fully frosted this time. Sometimes plain is good too.


And here's how things look now, the weekend before Thanksgiving. The leaves are down and cleared away, the grass is greening up a little after the drought, and there are still plenty of carrots and turnips in the garden, but that's all.
The shadows are getting long early now – this was only 3:30 in the afternoon – and there's still another month to go before the days start getting longer again.

Thanks for dropping by and sticking it out to the end. I know this was a long one.
Bella says see you next year!

]]> Sat, 23 Nov 2024 04:49:40 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2848/july-2024-garden-and-stuff http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2848 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.
]]> Mon, 15 Jul 2024 16:22:22 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2768/garden-2023-wrap-up-and-other-stuff http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2768 2023 – Another Year, Another Garden
2023 Garden Update 1
2023 Garden Update 2


October 19, 2023
The updates were cut short this year because I pretty much gave up on the garden in late July. Many things just didn't want to grow, and the bugs were worse than I've ever seen them. When my zucchini and butternuts died (squash bugs), and several attempts at cucumbers and cantaloupes failed (reasons unknown), I just said to hell with it. That really took the motivation out of me.
I kept picking stuff that was already growing, but I stopped weeding and cultivating and didn't bother planting anything for the fall. Hopefully the resting time, along with the weeds and grass that grew will make next year's soil better.
I did take a few pics for updates that never materialized, so I figured I'd post them now for a final update of the year, along with some other stuff from a couple of days ago.


Here's how things look right now. A little depressing, right? I don't think I've ever let weeds go like this before, but like I said, maybe it'll help the soil for next year.

I let some red romaine go to seed earlier in the summer, and when I cleared away the stalks a bunch of seed must have fallen out, which actually took root and grew on its own with no help whatsoever. No watering, no cultivating, and after all the trouble I had getting things to grow this year, too. Can you believe that?

Still getting tomatoes. 

Marigolds between the tomatoes.

The okra has been done for a while, but stalks with mature pods are still standing.

A wild tomato came up where cucumbers should have been.

Some wild potatoes have come up, too, either from tiny ones discarded in the earlier harvest, or from seeds produced by a few of the former plants. By wild I just mean things I didn't intentionally plant.

Here's some stuff picked earlier in the year. This isn't all of it, of course. I only took a few shots now and then, but this was pretty much standard for this year's limited garden – except for the cucumber and stunted zucchini in the upper left pic, which were the only ones I managed to get all year.





Many of the peppers were used this way, along with some of the tomatoes.

Cut up and topped with a little extra mozzarella.

Unstuffed pepper casseroles. Same as stuffed peppers, just all cut up and mixed together.

Here's how the corn looked when it was ready to pick.

As usual, much of it had worms at the top, but there's always a perfect ear here and there.

Cleaned and scrubbed.

Mmmmmm.

Here are the red potatoes. If you remember the bug attack that killed most of the leaves in an earlier update, I'm thinking that's why so many of them are small. The plants were shut down early, before they finished growing.

 Some were full-sized, though, and even had other little ones growing out of them.

Mr. Potato Head, and family.

I ended up with 65 lbs. from the 30 seed potatoes that were planted in two rows.

Here's how they looked cleaned up and ready for cooking.

Here are the russets, from just one row of 15 seed potatoes. They had the same problem as the reds, stunted growth from the bug attack. The second 'experimental' row of russets that got planted a month later didn't produce at all. Probably too hot for them by then.

Here's the one row of carrots, stunted for a different reason – they just didn't want to grow. I even gave them an extra month. The green tops are from exposure to the sun. They were in the ground so long that the soil around the tops washed away from watering and occasional rain. No big deal, though.

The russets and the carrots. I didn't bother weighing them.

Here's a couple of dinners with sides from the garden. First, a schnitzel with red potatoes and sour cream, a piece of fresh corn, and fresh green beans with bacon and some of the russets.

And roasted pork tenderloin with some of the carrots, mashed russets, and gravy made from the tenderloin juices.

Some of the carrots also went into a carrot spice cake, one of my yearly garden rituals.





Summer green. This was from the end of July – low, evening sun shining under the clouds after a rainstorm, lighting up the front tree line.

Here was the sunset about 20 minutes later.

There were a few decent rains in August, and the grass grew thick enough to harvest.

I blew it into concentrated rows with the mower, raked it into piles, loaded it into a cart, and hauled it off to the garden.

Here are two piles of it. There's a third pile out of frame to the right. I'll spread it out and till it in later to increase the amount of organic matter in the soil for next year.

Here's the yard now, just starting to look like fall.

One of the neighbor's chickens went rogue and hid some eggs that she hatched out in secret. She keeps bringing the chicks over to forage for bugs. 

Mum's the word in autumn.

More mums.

More mums.

Buddy and mums.

A Daddy Longlegs on a fall-colored marigold.

Looking up a sycamore tree.

Maybe a little hard to see, but here's a Pileated Woodpecker.

A Northern Flicker.

The Goldfinches have already lost their color for the year.

Oaks bordering the backyard, silhouetted against the late afternoon sun. Note how low in the sky the sun is now. In July it's above those trees from the same perspective.

Buddy again.

This is armadillo damage. I have it all over the yard. Armadillos were never here before the 1990s, but now they're a regular thing. I can't stand them.

The usual fall decor, set up to be seen from the driveway.

Polly and Buddy.

A nighttime visitor from two nights ago, chowing down on birdseed under the feeders.

He wasn't very nervous at all about me standing there taking pictures of him. I suppose the rut has started. Rutting bucks can be cocky and brave like that, especially young ones.

A final shot of the yard and garden for the year. There's a little fall color coming on, but most things are still green. That'll change soon, and it'll be time for raking leaves again.

Well, that's it for this year. Thanks for stopping by. Here's wishing everyone a happy holiday season, which, as far as I'm concerned, begins with Halloween. ]]> Thu, 19 Oct 2023 15:12:34 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2738/2023-garden-update-2 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2738 Well, it looks like this year's garden is shaping up to be a showcase of things that can go wrong. So far, anyway.
It was a dry spring, which is almost unheard of in my region.
A lot of things weren't growing properly in the beginning, and took forever to get going.
The corn came up a little spotty and has been growing unevenly.

And now... Bugocalypse 2023!
This was June 28th, and there were blister beetles all over the potatoes. The bastards! There must have been thousands of them. It was as if a big swarm had landed in the garden overnight.

For reference, this is how they looked 5 days earlier, in the previous update.

And this is what they looked like on the 28th, after I broke out the chemical weapons and went to war. They did not look like this the night before when I watered. It didn't take the vile pestilence very long at all to eat most of the leaves.

Luckily, the Sevin dust I tried on them worked. I don't know what I would have done if it hadn't. Here's several of them running for their lives after the application. They were doing this all around the potatoes.

But they didn't make it very far. Here are some that barely made it to the beets before going belly up, literally. There was also a tomato hornworm making a run for it. Must have been somewhere in the potatoes, too. It got squashed right after I took this.

Here are several that I smashed with the butt end of a 2x2 as they were running. This kind of thing always makes me wonder how people handled stuff like this back in the day before insecticides, when many depended on what they grew for sustenance. It must have been a nightmare for them.

While all of this was happening, a Zebra Swallowtail was trying to suck moisture out of the ground nearby, oblivious to the frantic warfare going on just a couple of rows over.

Once the potato leaves were gone, these became obvious. They're potato fruits, if anyone hasn't seen them before. They look a lot like tomatoes, being in the same family, Solanaceae, along with peppers and eggplant. They're poisonous to eat, but you can collect the seeds in them for growing more potatoes if you want. You might have problems with sexual crosses, though. Pretty sure that's why growing clones from seed potatoes is generally the preferred method. That, and the fact that it's just so easy and reliable.

And here we come forward to yesterday evening, July 8th.

The left side.

Here's how the potatoes look now. They're trying to regrow leaves and recover. Some of them are doing better than others. 

Kohlrabi and beets. The kohlrabi isn't close to being ready yet, but the beets are.

Romaine lettuce and beans. I need to hurry up and plant some more of the romaine, but I've been lazy about that. I guess I'm just not that into it. Honestly, I prefer iceberg lettuce, but of course I can't grow that in the heat.

Here's some of the romaine cleaned for the fridge.

The beans are starting to flower.

And yet another bug problem. The squash bugs have been bad this year. Here they've killed the biggest zucchini I had at the time, just as it was starting to produce. This was from a few days ago. The plant is gone now. I pulled it.

Here's what the little sapsucking demons look like. They are consistently my worst pest from year to year. Sevin doesn't kill them, so I have to spray the plants well to flood the base when I'm watering, and when the bugs run for higher ground I flick them off and turn squash bugs into squashed bugs. Unfortunately, it's not a foolproof method. They usually win in the end.

Here's one on the romaine lettuce for some reason. Weird, because they don't tend to eat this stuff. Maybe he was just exploring, looking for more squash. His journey ended prematurely, I'm afraid.

Here's the second of the first two zucchinis. Still alive for now.

It's just now starting to produce.

And here are two new ones, about a week-and-a-half old.

Here's the cucumber, still growing slower than usual. It's finally starting to vine out and flower, but there are no fruits of any appreciable size yet.

The blackberries.

The few berries on them are starting to ripen.

Okra in the foreground. Doing fine I suppose, but not flowering yet.

The butternut squash. One of the two plants is under attack. Can you see the evidence?

Yup. One of them is dying off. Squash bugs again. This is a bad sign because butternuts don't usually succumb to them. I don't think I've ever lost a butternut plant to squash bugs before, even when they're infested with them. This sucks.

The other one is flowering and starting to set fruit. I hope I can keep it alive.

Something took a bite out of this one. I have no idea what. It's not what squash bugs do, and turtles or rabbits shouldn't be able to get inside the fence. It's a mystery for now.

Here's the other side of the garden.

The tomatoes are looking good. So are the carrots, finally. They should almost be ready by now, but no.

Tomatoes.

Lower ones are starting to ripen.

Cherry tomatoes.

Also starting to ripen down below.

The marigolds I planted between the tomatoes have come up. Flowers are easier to grow than vegetables, in my experience.

Bell peppers.

More bell peppers.

The second russet potato planting is doing well. You can't really see it in this shot, but I've raked soil up on them now, giving them maybe 5 or 6 inches to grow in. I may rake more up on them in a few days, before the leaves get too big.

Ready for a laugh? This is supposed to be the second planting of corn. What a joke. It came up well, but then it started disappearing. I can't be sure, but I suspect birds. Corn first emerges as a little green spike that might resemble a little green caterpillar to them, and I'm always seeing birds hopping around on the ground in the garden. I'm going to have to figure out some way to keep things off the corn when it's small next year. Floating row cover, maybe. I don't know if this batch is even going to be able to pollinate itself, what with all the gaps. I guess we'll find out.

Fortunately, the first planting is doing much better. It's still somewhat uneven, but the shorter ones are catching up. Hopefully they'll all be silking out at roughly the same time.

Here are the trellised cantaloupes, finally starting to vine out. Dead peas are still on the other trellises in the background. The deader and drier they are, the easier they are to clear away. I'll get to that soon, and I'll be planting something else in their place. No fall peas this year, so probably more beets and carrots. Definitely another cucumber.

The cantaloupes are already setting fruit. See the little baby one in the middle of the image?

Here's a couple of apples outside the garden.

They've started to fall.

Here are the watermelon plants in the separate side plot, still growing slower than they should be.

After several tries I finally got some to come up on the right side. None of probably 15 seeds came up before, so I dug out a pack of last year's seeds and tried 4 in one place, along with 4 more of this year's seed in another. Every one of them came up this time. Every last one! I just don't get it. I'll thin them to 2 plants before long. Hopefully they'll have enough time to make melons before the sunlight starts to get weaker in the late summer and fall.

Here's Buddy, doing great. His growth rate finally slowed down. He went from one to about three pounds in the first two-and-a-half weeks, but only gained another half in the next two. I was wondering if I was going to have a monster on my hands there for a while, lol.

He's been exploring everywhere. Here he is in a partial-shade flower bed.

There's a wren house in the tree above that flower bed. One brood has already come out of it this year, and the wrens are apparently trying for another, which is unusual in my yard. This one is watching Buddy on the ground below.

Here's how much he grew in about a month.

Here's July's full moon rising last week. My camera didn't do it justice. It looked huge to the naked eye.

I zoomed in when it was a little higher, but still low enough to have that yellowish on-the-horizon color.

Here are some beets I picked last night. If you think you hate beets but have never had fresh ones, you should try them. Fresh beets are astonishingly better than the canned ones you might get at the store, and they're super good for you.

Here's how to cook them (one way at least, the way I do it). Just wash them and cut the tops off, leaving about an inch of the stems attached. Don't peel them or cut into any part of the beet itself, or the juice will bleed out while cooking. Cover them with water in a pot and cook at a low boil for an hour or so. Maybe longer for larger beets. The only goal is to soften them all the way through.

As they cook they begin to look like an evil witches brew, with weird black stuff accumulating on the pot and any utensils placed in the water. It makes you wonder who ever thought these things might be good to eat in the first place, lol. But it's not a problem. It washes off.

When you think they're done, scoop them out and place them somewhere to cool for a while.

When cool, just peel, rinse, and cut them up. The skin comes off easily. Most of it just pulls off with your fingers. Eat them hot or cold. Try salt and butter on them when hot, or a little vinegar drizzled over them when cold. Add the cold ones to a salad if you like. It's good stuff, I'm telling you.

That's all for now. See you next time.
]]> Mon, 10 Jul 2023 01:25:57 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2728/2023-garden-update-1 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2728 I'm sorry that it's been almost a month, but everything other than the tomatoes and potatoes are growing slower than normal this year, and I didn't really want to post an update when nothing much had changed. There's finally enough to look at now, though.

The potatoes have been going gangbusters. 

The reds are flowering here and there.

Kohlrabi and beets are just above the potatoes.

Then there's some red and green romaine. I'll rotate more through here as the summer goes on.

The green beans. Just a small batch for the summer. I'll plant more later for the fall.

Here are the first two zucchinis. I made a mistake by leaving the shade wood on the ground next to them when they came up, and squash bugs moved in under it, damn near killing the plants before I figured out what was going on. As you can see, one has recovered better than the other, but they should be all right now. I have two more started next to them as well.

Here's a cucumber plant. I don't understand why it's growing so slowly, but like I said it's certainly not the only thing.

On the other side we have the tomatoes and peppers. I'm pruning the tomatoes to five vines per plant this year. The wood between them is for marigold seeds. I had marigolds between them last year and they seemed to keep aphids away, so I thought I'd do it again. I should have started them earlier, but it slipped my mind.

The first tomato is a cherry, the other two are regular. That's a row of carrots on the right. Not very visible yet.

Some green cherry tomatoes. I can't remember the variety. A bird must have stolen the plant ID marker I had in the ground next to it, because it is certainly missing. Probably part of a nest somewhere.

And some green regulars. I think these are Best Boys. 

I had more seed potatoes from last year than I needed for what was planted earlier, and because I had less corn seed than normal, I planted another row of potatoes. They're under the line on the right of the image.

They were getting pretty old and dry, but they seem to be coming up just fine. I'll rake soil up on them as they grow. I didn't have any extra soil amendments for them, so I'm considering this an experiment.

The second corn is coming up in the no-longer-empty area next to the first corn.

Here's the first corn. Another thing growing slower than expected, and rather unevenly. I don't know why. I hope it works out.

The peas are done and dying off now.

Here's what they looked like shelled.

Here's 3 of about 10 quarts I got from them, so about 2 1/2 gallons.

Here are the cantaloupes, another slow grower this year.

Flowering already, too. Go figure.

The okra. Still small, but it'll probably explode before long.

The blackberries.

There definitely won't be many this year, but some are coming on.

The butternuts.

One of the blueberry bushes.

Starting to ripen.

And yet another slow grower – the watermelons in the backyard side plot. They should be much bigger than this. I think this was actually bad seed. I've planted maybe 15 seeds on the right so far, and none of them have come up. I've reseeded it again, but I may have to settle for those two plants on the left.

Here's a birdhouse in the apple tree, with a couple of small apples in the upper right. Wrens are in the birdhouse.

If you noticed the lack of apples and the dead leaves in the image above, this may be why – Yellow-bellied Sapsucker woodpecker damage. I think the tree is sick. I hope it recovers.

I have two new ones planted, though. They went in the ground last year. Red Delicious and Enterprise varieties.

Here's another look at their placement in the yard from a different angle. They're in the lower right, down by the little frog and turtle pond.

Speaking of turtles...

I think this one is a Red-eared Slider, but I'm not positive.

They lay eggs in the yard. Snapping turtles do it, too.

Some kind of Dahlia. I can't remember which.

Purple Clematis, growing up a couple of twine lines on one side of the porch.

A hummingbird, with a hanging begonia in the background.

Honeybees like hummingbird nectar, too.

A Blue jay making off with a whole peanut.

I haven't been lucky enough to catch any wren chicks fledging from their birdhouses this year, but they were all over the place for a few days. I think this was the first morning out of the nest for these two.

Their parents were still feeding them.

A gray squirrel.

A chipmunk.

A hungry bunny.

Polly and her daily back-scratching-in-the-sun thing.

And introducing... Buddy McFussypants!

He was dumped here on the night of the 6th, and was so tiny. This was taken that first morning, and he only weighed about a pound.

He's growing faster than the garden, though. He's up to about three pounds now. Here's a short video.

That's all for now. Thanks for dropping by again.

]]> Fri, 23 Jun 2023 23:37:52 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2724/2023-another-year-another-garden http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2724 Quick reminder: I don't claim to be an expert, and I'm not trying to grow heaps of stuff to fill a root cellar or anything. This is just a hobby for enjoyment and exercise – and a few fresh veggies, of course. 
And we're off...
Here's how things looked on January 25th.

And here's how things looked exactly three months later, on April 25th, as I was about to work in this year's soil amendments. I planted some peas in March, and they were coming up in the back under a few trellises, but I didn't get any photos of them at the time.

April is when the wrens return...

...and I was picking asparagus all month long.

A short time later, the first week of May, snowballs were blooming over my homemade bird fountain and baths.

Of course the squirrels use them, too.

And then it was time to plant potatoes. I know people say to plant them on or around St. Patrick's day, but that just sounds crazy to me. I've been starting them in early May, with great results.
Here I had some fast-growing Red Norlands on the left (just from Walmart), and some of my own seed potatoes on the right – slower-growing Goldrush russets that I special ordered, left over from last year's garden. They sat in that bucket in the garage for 8 months, with nothing but a crumpled paper bag over them to catch moisture and keep light out. Not one of them rotted. I was impressed.

I started by measuring out the rows and marking them in the soil with a hoe. My soil is rather clay-heavy, so I use extra amendments for potatoes – Miracle Grow potting mix, play sand, and straw left over from the previous year's outdoor fall decorations.

I spread it all out on the rows...

... and then I tilled it in, raked it up, and pulled roughly five-inch-deep furrows under row lines.

In went the seed potatoes.

And finally, covered over and done. It got too dark on me and I had to use a flash.

And here we are at the end of May – yesterday, the 26th, to be exact.

Here's a peach tree I planted last summer. Looking great so far.

This is the starting plan for this year. 

The left side. Check out those potatoes, about three weeks after planting.

You can tell the faster-growing reds are the two rows on the right.

Everything else on this side is planted, but hasn't come up yet. The boards are a germination aid for shallow seeds. They keep the sun off the soil right above the seeds, so it stays damper, longer. The boards are removed when the plants come up.

The right side.

Tomatoes and peppers with stakes, and a row of a carrots on the right. I'm only doing three tomatoes this year. 

Here's the first planting of corn (five rows, not up yet), and three trellises of peas. The empty trellis on the left has cantaloupes under it, but they've just barely started coming up.

I always special order a specific variety of corn, and for the first time ever I got screwed on the quantity I received. That's supposed to be a packet of 200 seeds, and I usually get a few more than that, but this year I was 20 seeds short. In place of those 20 seeds I got a pile of broken pieces and dust. What a bunch of crap. Not a huge deal, though. I'll still get plenty of corn.

I haven't grown okra in years, so I figured it was time again. Just three plants, but as you'll see, that will be more than enough for several pots of gumbo, and okra and tomatoes, too. Again, the wood is just to keep the sun off the soil where the seeds are germinating.

There probably won't be many blackberries this year. They seem to go through a cycle in which they grow big for a few years and then die back. Looks like this is a year for regrowth. Most of the old growth was dead this spring and had to be cut out.

I'm going to try putting butternuts in a corner this year. I'm curious about how well they'll do running up the fence. This may be a mistake, but we'll see.

Believe it or not, I still have four in decent shape from last year's crop. They've lasted as long as the seed potatoes did, about 8 months. It was a fantastic year for them. I got over fifty from three plants. They just kept going and going. This year I considered only planting one, but I was worried about pollination, so I went with two.

Here's a closer shot of some of the peas.

A few pods are starting to come on.

Here are a couple of blueberry bushes that were started a few summers ago, different varieties for pollination purposes. They're growing slower than expected, and that might be a pH thing with my soil. I've been trying make it more acidic around them since last summer. Hopefully, that'll help.

They may be growing slowly, but they're making berries. Still, I can't wait for bigger bushes and a bigger crop.

Here's the small side plot in the back yard, with watermelons planted in it this year. Just one hill for a couple of plants. I should get four to six melons from them. The extra wire is because something got over the outer wire and was digging around in there right before I planted. I suspect a raccoon.

A house wren, singing away. I have five birdhouses with mating pairs in them this year. They're one of my favorite summer birds.

The early spring flowers are done, and now it's time for lilies.

There were flying squirrels at the platform bird feeder last night. Cute little things, but they're nocturnal, skittish, and hard to photograph. I've done it before and have figured out a method. I set the camera up on a tripod and then vacate the area, using the Wifi remote setting to control the shutter from a distance with a tablet. They're afraid of light, so I have to observe with a flashlight mostly covered up by a hand, letting only a little light slip through my fingers to know when to take a shot. But seeing things a person wouldn't normally see makes the hassle worthwhile.

That's all for now. Thanks for dropping by.

]]> Sat, 27 May 2023 17:23:57 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2491/garden-2021-part-3 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2491
The weather has been a mix of good and bad this month. Some days have been hot and humid, and downright nasty. Others have been pleasant and almost cool. I'm going into another hot spell at the moment. Today is forecasted to be something like 95, and because of recent rain it'll probably be as humid as a swamp. Another cold front is supposed to blow through in a few days, though.
Today's heat aside, it was pretty nice last night when I took the camera up to the garden.
August 24, 2021
Yesterday's evening shade.

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One of the Knock Out roses outside the gate..

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It looks inviting this time of day, doesn't it?


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The butternut squash. These plants have been weak from the start, and now they look sickly.

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There are some squash in there, but I don't know if the plants will live long enough to mature them. One of these days I'll learn my lesson about switching seed sources unnecessarily. Last year's plants were majestic compared to these.

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Watermelons on the right, and a replanting of beets and carrots under the boards on the left. All of my earlier fall plantings failed (except for the peas). They germinated and I took the boards off, but it was pretty hot at the time and they died. I suppose I should have given them a few more days to send down deeper roots.

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Two seedless melons.

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A seedless on the left, and a darker seeded variety on the right. They're taking their sweet time this year. They still have a ways to go.

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New zucchini transplants for the fall.

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The beans are still going.

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Still flowering, even.


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This might be the healthiest, most productive cucumber plant I've ever grown. It's almost three months old now and hasn't gotten sick, and it's still producing like a champ.



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This has become a daily ration for me -- a whole cucumber with Zesty Italian dressing.

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They're coming out of my ears. Here's 40 I picked just while taking these pictures. Anyone want any cucumbers?

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Polly dropped by while I was picking them. She decided I was being boring and took a nap.

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Here's another cucumber coming up for the fall. I may not need it, though. Not if Super Plant keeps going like it is. This is actually the expensive variety I couldn't get to germinate at the start of the season. I only had a few seeds left, so I tried starting them in a pot and it worked. 

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Some fall peas coming up.

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The trellised cantaloupes.



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I'm not very impressed with this variety. They're too small. Here's one from last week, next to a few tomatoes and cucumbers for comparison. They taste pretty good, but I think I'll go back to a bigger variety next year.

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The bell peppers.

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Some are finally turning red.

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A couple of Red Mist lettuce plants. I've been totally slacking off when it comes to lettuce this year. At least I'll have some for the fall. There's more coming up in pots.

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The tomatoes.




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The corn has all been picked, but I haven't cleared the stalks away yet. That's another trellis of fall peas on the right.

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Here was the first picking of corn.

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I almost walked right into this yellow garden spider while picking it. It was about three inches across. It had made a web between a couple of corn rows, and I barely noticed it in time. If that thing had gotten on me I probably would have come flying out of the corn screaming like a madman.

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Here's a nice one.

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Shucked.

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Cleaned.

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Bagged for the freezer.

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Some of it went in the fridge for fresh eating, of course. Fresh corn smothered in butter and a little salt is one of the best things in the world, if you ask me.

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Here was the second and last picking a few days later. It's a pretty small batch. The corn grew pretty evenly this year, and almost all of it got picked the first time.

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Another nice one. I had quite a few of these this year.

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Most of them had invaders at the top, though, in both pickings. Damn ear worms.

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It's nothing a sharp knife won't fix, though.

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Second picking, shucked.

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Cleaned.

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And bagged.

This year's corn tally:
Pre-pick samples - 6
First picking - 126
Second picking - 46
Total - 178
Not quite as many as last year, but still more than my yearly minimum goal of 150 pieces. It was really good quality this year, too. Very uniform.
***
Back to the garden. Here's the raised row of potatoes. The vines are completely dead now, so they're ready for digging. I wanted to include them in this post, but it rained over the weekend and the ground is still wet. Red potatoes are thin-skinned and don't keep very long to begin with, so I decided not to dig them while damp. I'll dig them in another day or two and include them in the next post. The empty space on the left is where the first zucchinis were, but they all died. The squash bugs won the war.

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I couldn't help but dig a few potatoes since the last post, and I turned some of them into one of my favorite casseroles. I don't think it has a name. It's just potatoes, onions, ground beef, and cream of mushroom soup.

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It may not look like much, but it's darn tasty. I especially like it in the winter when it's cold out. Fresh corn on the side makes it even better.

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Polly's like, "I'm ready to go. Are we done yet?" Yes, Polly. Almost.

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Here's the wild tomato growing by the trash pile.

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The tomatoes are bigger than I expected. Usually when hybrids come back from seed the tomatoes are small like cherry tomatoes.

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The birdhouse gourds in the side plot.


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Something has been eating my broccoli starts in the planter. Not a good sign. This may not work out after all. I always have problems with things eating brassicas. That's why I hardly ever try to grow them.

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Some new potted mums along the garage for the fall, which is just around the corner now. I'm looking forward to it. I love fall.

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That's all for now. See you next time.

]]> Tue, 24 Aug 2021 13:18:59 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2479/garden-2021-part-2 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2479
After a couple weeks of nasty July heat and humidity, this past week has been absolutely gorgeous. Another cool start to August, with highs only in the low to mid 80s. I could seriously get used to this. Unfortunately, it's supposed to be back in the 90s by next week.
August 5, 2021
Overcast skies and a cool breeze. The high was only 84 today, and that wasn't until late afternoon.

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The new Knock Out roses are growing slowly, but flowering constantly.

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Had a very light rain earlier.

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A horsefly greeted me at the gate. Didn't try to bite me, though.

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Things are coming along nicely.

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Butternut squash. Not as vigorous as last year's plants. I got the seed from a different source this year, so that figures.

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Baby butternut.

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A tiny cricket frog on a dirty butternut flower.

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Two kinds of fall spinach freshly planted on the left, and watermelons on the right.



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Cucumber plant, big and healthy.



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Trellised cantaloupes.



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Beans, with newly planted beets and carrots on the left.

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Something's been chewing holes in the leaves, but it hasn't been a problem so far.

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First picking a few days ago. A little over a gallon.

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Zucchini.




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I lost one of my plants to these little bastards. My nemesis — hands down the worst pest in my garden — squash bugs.

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They lay these little eggs all over the place. I'm going to have to go on a major bug hunt this weekend.

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Potatoes. (The boards in the upper right have a few kale seeds under them. Never grown it before.)

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I moved some dirt away to check on them, and.... yowza!

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Of course I had to dig a few.

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These are just from one plant. Awesome!

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The corn pulled itself back up nicely after being laid over by a storm a few weeks ago, and then it grew like wildfire.

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Almost ready to pick.

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Peppers.



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Tomatoes.



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Fall peas have been planted under the trellises, but they aren't up yet.

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Here's a tomato growing wild outside the fence by the corner garbage pile. It must have come up from last year's kitchen scraps. I'm curious to see how well it grows and what the tomatoes will taste like, being an F2 hybrid.


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I've started raking up grass cuttings after mowing. I do this whenever there's enough summer rain for it to grow thickly (there wasn't last year). Some years I end up with a pretty big pile. I'll spread it over the garden in the winter and till it under in the spring. Free organic matter.

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Apple.

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It's August and this tiny blueberry bush is still ripening fruit.

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Birdhouse gourds in the side plot.

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Baby gourd.

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A few things in the planter. Cucumbers and lettuce are up, zucchini and broccoli aren't. Yup, I'm trying a little fall broccoli again. Worms were horrible the last time I tried, but we'll see how it goes this time around.

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I wore through my hoe blade this week.

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Had a replacement handy, though.

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Flowers...




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A wren feeding chicks.

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Thanks for stopping by. See you next time.

]]> Thu, 05 Aug 2021 23:29:51 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2460/garden-2021-part-1-very-late-start http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2460
I got off to a late start this year, but it didn't matter. I had two hard freezes in late April, which would have undone everything anyway, so I suppose that actually worked out for the best.
The problem is, after the freezes the weather never returned to normal. May was every bit as wet as last year, and unseasonably cold as well. The... Whole... Darn... Month... I think I was actually wearing a jacket as late as June 1st. I managed to plant some carrots, beets, and kohlrabi in May, but that was all I could do.
I had started taking pics in April for another garden blog this year, but after the weather turned bad for so long I kind of gave up. I was finally able to start the rest of the garden in June, but I didn't start taking pics again until today. 
The fence has been completely rebuilt. No rabbit problems so far.
I'll try to post updates every few weeks or so.
April 15, 2021
It felt like spring. Trees were flowering, and I was prepping the soil...






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Five days later this happened, followed by two nights of temps in the mid 20s...



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Fast forward to today, July 9th...

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I planted two Double-Knock-Out rose bushes this year, and another apple tree. The roses survived the weather, but it doesn't look like the apple tree did. It had small green leaves before the freezes, but nothing since. Maybe that, plus the shock of transplanting was too much for it.

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Not the greatest looking flowers, but still a nice splash of color in front of the garden.

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The gate's open, let's go...

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Looking left - Butternut squash. Only two plants this year.

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Looking right - Kohlrabi and watermelons. Seedless watermelons on the ends, with a seeded variety in the middle for pollination.

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Kohlrabi up close.

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Looking left - Beets and carrots.

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Looking right - Cucumber.  Smaller than it should be. I ordered some fancy seeds and planted them first, but they never came up (figures), so this is a second attempt with my old standby, Marketmore 76.

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Looking left - Green beans.

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Looking right - Trellised cantaloupe. A different variety this year. I hope it works out.

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Baby cantaloupes.

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Looking left again - Two kinds of zucchini...

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Yellow...

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And regular green.

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Red potatoes. Finally some good results. You can't really see it anymore because of the leaves, but I raked up a big raised bed to plant them in this year, and mixed straw into it. Worked great for a change. I guess that's the secret, at least in my garden.

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Only five peppers this year.

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The blackberries took a beating over the winter. Many of the canes died and had to be cut out, presumably from the -15F cold spell in early February.

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Still made a few berries, but not enough to bother with putting up the netting frame.

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Only four tomatoes this year.


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Corn.

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Looking back.

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Empty trellises, due to the bad spring. I'll try to fill them with peas this fall.

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The first pickings of the year. The carrots aren't really big enough yet, but I only needed a little to add some color to the slaw I'm going to make out of the kohlrabi.

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Here's some unripe blueberries on one of two extremely slow-growing bushes. 

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Birdhouse gourds growing in the side plot this year, just for fun.

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Around the yard...











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See you next time. Not sure when that will be. Two or three weeks, maybe.
]]> Fri, 09 Jul 2021 18:39:33 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2307/the-garden-chronicles-week-30-end-of-season http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2307
Well, it's dry at the moment, but it's been cool and rainy for the better part of the past 2 weeks, and I've had several frosts and one good freeze as well. Thus, my gardening growing season is over for the year, even though the forecast for the coming week says it's going to be beautifully warm and sunny (for November, anyway) for something like 8 days in a row.
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- The first killing frost came the night of Oct 15th -

Before.
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After.
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Before.
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After.
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Before.
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After.
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Before.
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After.
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Before.
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After.
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The Touchon carrots didn't mind the frost, of course.
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Neither did the other ones.
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Nor the lettuce.
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The zucchini, however, couldn't handle it.
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Neither could the peppers.
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The baby beets and spinach held up well.
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So did the kohlrabi and Maestro peas...
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... and the Miragreen peas.
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But like the other peppers, the hot peppers didn't make it.
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- Today, November 1 -

Two weeks since the first frost. I've had a few more since, and there was a freeze a few days ago.
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I also got 6 inches of rain in the past week.
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The Touchon carrots are still there. I harvested beets and turnips before the freeze, though.
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The rest of the winter carrots. They'll just stay there in the ground until I want them.
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Still have lettuce growing, but I don't really want any of it at the moment. I often lose my appetite for salad when the weather turns cool in the fall.
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Dead beans.
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Dead Big Beefs.
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Baby beets still going.
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The Miragreen peas got picked a few days ago.
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More baby beets, but the Spinach and Kohlrabi were picked before the freeze.
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The Maestro peas still need their second picking, but after that they'll be done.
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- Recently picked stuff -

This is what I do with excess zucchini. Sliced, blanched, quick-cooled, frozen overnight in a single layer on cookie sheets, and then bagged once frozen.
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Peppers, Maestro peas, and beans on Oct 14.
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The Maestro peas.
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A frying-size zucchini.
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Rosemary.
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Dried in a dehydrator and crumbled up.
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About 5 gallons of Miragreen peas on Oct 29.
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Shelled.
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Here's what I picked just before the freeze —  kohlrabi, a few peppers that were still firm after the frosts, two cucumbers I'd missed before, beets, a few mutant-looking hybrid turnips, and some of both kinds of carrots.
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Chicken and kohlrabi stew, and a few cooked beets.
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A first-time experiment — kohlrabi and carrot 'kohl' slaw. It was pretty darn good. I could hardly tell the difference.
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Fried zucchini.
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Here's one thing you can do with a crisper full of peppers. Take a stuffed pepper recipe, but cut the peppers up and make casseroles instead. You can really use them up in a hurry this way. It's especially useful for smaller, oddly shaped ones.
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- Trail cam shots -











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- Miscellaneous -

A flying squirrel on Halloween.
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While I was waiting for the flying squirrel to pose for me, a little field mouse ran up the tree, climbed inside the suet holder, and started chowing down.
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The woods.
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They're a little hard to see, but the Goldfinches have lost their color for the year.
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A Tufted Titmouse.
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A Cardinal.
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Well, it's November 1st and I still have baby beets and a few peas to pick, but I think this is going to be it for the year, folks. I might add a winter update later on, after it snows, but I have no idea when that will be.
Thanks for following along. I hope everyone got at least a little enjoyment out of this. A little enjoyment was sorely needed this year.
So long for now.

]]> Mon, 02 Nov 2020 02:24:56 -0500 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2288/the-garden-chronicles-week-27 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2288
The weather is gorgeous. It's still dry, but temps are almost perfect. Two weeks ago it was chilly, but this past week it turned unseasonably warm, and it's supposed to stay that way until Thursday. The garden is loving it, and so am I.
*******

I thought the fall equinox was the 21st, but it was the 22nd this year. It was cloudy on the 22nd, so this is as close as I could get.
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The first picking of fall beans on Sep 22.
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This is what they look like cut up.
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The next picking on Sep 24.
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A mess of tomatoes on Sep 26.
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I only process a few at a time. Mostly because I hate doing it. Here's a couple bags of Rutgers for the freezer.
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More beans on Sep 27.
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More tomatoes for the freezer. These are Big Beefs.
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Cucumbers and tomatoes on the 27th.
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Baked butternut squash. Let's make a pie!
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I roasted this one longer than I should have. I was trying to get the excess moisture out, but I overdid it a bit. That's why it looks so flaky. It'll work just fine, though.
.

Mashed smooth and measured out.
.

Ingredients for the classic Libby's recipe, but with butternut squash instead of pumpkin.
.

Voilà!
.

The flavor of fall.
.

More beans on Sep 29.
.

At long last, a nice batch of zucchini.
.

The very last cucumber picking on Sep 29. The plant is done.
.

Some peppers on Sep 30.
.

Beans on Sep 30.
.

Beans on Oct 3. I picked again 3 days later, but I can't find a picture for the 6th. I must have forgotten to take one. It was about the same amount.
.

Some shots of the yard on Oct 7.
.






*******
.

The garden on Oct 10.
.

The posts are finished all the way around. The wire isn't, though.
.

Almost mid-October and still rockin'.
.

Rutgers tomatoes and Touchon carrots.
.

Beets and turnips.
.

The other carrots.
.

Here's what happens when you get tired of eating lettuce. It flowers and goes to seed.
.

Beans.
.

Beans.
.

4 days since they were last picked.
.

Looking back.
.

Maestro peas.
.

Friggin loaded.
.

Kohlrabi. Starting to bulb out.
.

Baby beets and some spinach.
.

The squash plot. Still a few in there.
.

I can't believe they're still trying to flower.
.

Some vines grew up into the asparagus and set fruit.
.





Looking back. Check out all those pea pods.
.

Big Beef tomatoes.
.

See the grasshopper? I think it's the first one I've noticed all summer. How weird is that?
.

Zucchini.
.

Zucchini. Aging plants never look pretty. At least not in my garden.
.

Zucchini ready for picking.
.

The nearly-drowned peppers.
.







Remember the one that almost didn't come back? After being tiny all summer long, it's actually making peppers now.
.

Here they are. I'm impressed.
.

Here's some on the backups.
.

The purple cayennes.
.

More baby beets.
.

Rosemary.
.

Still working on the fence.
.

The Miragreen peas are growing like monsters. Some of them are over 6 feet tall now.
.

Miragreen pods.
.

Dead cantaloupe vines on the trellis to the right.
.

The side zucchini plot.
.









These poor bastards. They're still sitting there because I keep forgetting to transplant them into the garden. There's not enough time for them to grow anyway. I might pot them inside and stick them in a window.
*******
- Trail cam shots -







*******
- Some shots of the fall woods -













The big oak on the way to the garden.
.

The smaller redbud, with seed pods still hanging from it.
.







An October rose. Cool.
.

A few corn stalks from the garden put to good use.
.

A little seasonal decor.
.

I stored the butternuts in a cluttered corner of the garage.
.

Getting dark earlier.
.

I had to finish picking beans with a flashlight.
.

Beans on Oct 10.
.

Some Maestro peas and Touchon carrots on Oct 11. I popped a few peas out and set a quarter next to them for comparison.
.

That little pile shelled out to about 2 1/2 cups.
.

Dinner time... Broiled chicken seasoned with rosemary, along with some green beans, carrots, peas, and butternut squash. Everything but the chicken, butter, and salt came from the garden, even the rosemary on the chicken.
.

That's all for now.
.

See you next time.
*******
Oh, here's a video of the armadillo that's been digging up... I mean 'aerating' the yard.

]]> Mon, 12 Oct 2020 05:27:26 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2266/the-garden-chronicles-week-24 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2266
The weather has been fantastic. Dry, but cool and crisp for weeks now. Perfect early fall weather. I've started working on the garden fence again because of it, even though the rabbit threat is still a bit high to be taking wire down. I've been able to wrap it back around the corner I'm working on well enough at the end of the day without actually clipping it on, so no problems yet.
Something very rare happened last week. A flying squirrel visited the platform feeder in the backyard on at least three nights. They're nocturnal and I wouldn't even have known he was there but for the fact that I was watering late one evening and walked by that tree and noticed some unusual chirping coming from it. I grabbed a flashlight and a camera and managed to get several videos of him sneaking bird seed. I used a video editing app to make a little movie out of them. It's down toward the bottom.
********
- Sunday, September 20 -

An absolutely beautiful evening.
.

Cool, crisp air.
.

Rutgers tomatoes and Touchon carrots.
.

Beets and turnips.
.

Not one bit of green on the Bull's Blood beets.
.

The other carrots.
.

Lettuce.
.

A Cimarron romaine (left) and a Red Mist.
.

Beans. I have to admit it's a little depressing that I haven't had any all summer long, but they're covered with flowers, and there are several tiny pods starting to develop, so maybe it won't be long now. I am so looking forward to some fresh green beans.
.

Looking back.
.

The Maestro peas. Flowering now.
.

The hybrid kohlrabi. I still don't see how they're only supposed to need 45 days like the packet says. I really doubt they'll make it before the first killing frost, but I guess we'll see.
.

The spinach isn't doing well. The few plants on the right are all that's left. The other row has beets in it now, which, like the kohlrabi, probably won't make it before the first frost. If I only get baby beets I'll be happy.
.

I picked most of the butternuts. There's only a few left in there still ripening.
.

Looking back.
.

The Big Beef tomatoes, almost spent.
.

There's still a lot of fruit on them.
.

Nice. No cracks on these, and very little bug damage. Fall tomatoes are usually pretty clean for me.
.

Zucchini.
.

The nearly-drowned peppers.
.

Making some decent ones now.
.

A few more. One of them is starting to turn red.
.

Here's one on the other pepper plants, almost all the way red.
.

The purple Cayenne peppers (mystery no more) are also turning red as they mature.
.

Red hot chili peppers.
.

More new beets where the first and second cucumbers were. Like the other new ones, they probably won't make it before the first frost, but I had a bunch of old seed and thought I'd give it a try.
.

The third cucumber. Still producing, but slowing down.
.

The half-trellis of Miragreen peas.
.

The other full trellis of Miragreen. They're loaded with flowers.
.

The cantaloupes are pretty much done now.
.

From outside the fence. Still green, still going.
.

I lost one of the zucchinis in the side plot. The vine exploded. I've had that happen before, but I have no idea what causes it.
.

The last two lettuces in the starting planter. They may not make it to any appreciable size, but the race is on.
.

This year's butternut squash (35 of them), picked on Saturday (minus two or three still ripening), along with some other stuff picked the same night — a Red Mist lettuce, 6 peppers, and some Touchon carrots (from the half-row that was planted under boards in June).
.

One lonely zucchini. It's been a horrible year for them, and I really don't understand why. The plants have grown, but would hardly ever set fruit. Maybe it was just a crappy variety.
.

One of the butternuts, about to be cooked.
.

Clean and orange throughout. Could be a bit darker, and they probably will be in a few weeks. They usually continue to ripen for a while in storage.
.

I love it when they fit into a baking dish as if they were made for it.
.
- Random flowers -










Sumacs always seem to be the first to show any pretty fall color around here.
.

An armadillo did this all over the backyard. I caught him in the act last night after dark, but he wouldn't let me get close enough with a flashlight to take a picture or a video.
Hey Texas, come and take your critters home. We don't want them.  
.

Check it out! This is the first point I've ever found on this place. The creek is dry and the weather's great, so I decided to walk it (for the umpteenth time) before the leaves really start coming down. I found it embedded edge-on in some gravel. I could hardly believe it.
Not really sure what kind it is. It looks Snyderish or Hopewellish to me, but strangely the notches aren't the same. One is a side notch, while the other is more of a corner notch (made that way, not broken off). Maybe it was just a practice point made by a novice and discarded? Then again, maybe the person simply lacked a sense of symmetry (or didn't really care about it). Whatever the case may be, the tip is still there, which is awesome. The only damage from the creek seems to be a single chip out of each blade edge, and I'm thinking the chert was heat treated (you can see a few pinks in it).
.
- Trail cam shots -

I picked up a deer feed block to see if I could get a little more action. The young'uns found it first on a foggy morning.
.

Followed by something a little more interesting.
.





I'm assuming Polly smells the deer.
.

Here's the movie I made out of the flying squirrel clips mentioned above, followed by a few screenshots in case the video won't stream well enough for everyone.
.



********
.

That's all for now.
.

See you next time.
]]> Mon, 21 Sep 2020 04:29:34 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2248/the-garden-chronicles-week-21 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2248
August turned out to be fantastic. One of the driest on record, but with the exception of a handful of hot days it was strangely cool and mild, and the lack of rain kept the humidity down most of the time. Dryness aside, I wish every August could be like this one.
Hurricane Laura turned east before any of its rain could reach me, but I got a little from a regular storm a couple of days later.
*******

A few evenings ago I was doing some hoeing under a cloudy sky and noticed this as the sun was setting. It hadn't rained, but I guess there was enough moisture in the air for a rainbow. A double rainbow, in fact. It was bigger and brighter than this when I first saw it, but by the time I ran in and grabbed the camera it had faded. I think it's the only rainbow I've seen all summer.
.

While I had the camera I went ahead snapped a few more shots of the sky.
.



I can never see the setting sun because of the woods to the west, but sometimes the clouds light up beautifully.
.
- This morning, August 30 -

It rained a little yesterday, the first time in more than two weeks. Only half an inch, but it was welcome.
.

It was still overcast this morning, and the air was a little chilly.
.

Rutgers and carrots.
.

Beets and turnips. The Bull's Blood beets in the foreground aren't doing very well, but the Detroit Dark Reds are moving right along. Now I wish I'd planted the whole row with them.
.

More carrots.
.

Lettuce.
.

Beans.
.

Looking back.
.

Maestro peas, where the corn had been.
.

The rain beat a few of them down, but they'll pop back up in no time.
.

The hybrid kohlrabi. The package claims it only needs 45 days, but it's already been at least 12, so I'm not so sure about that. It better grow fast.
.

Two different kinds of spinach, both started under boards. One is up, the other isn't. The one that isn't has had plenty of time, so it might not come up at all. I hate when that happens.
.

The butternut squash, with a couple of vines growing up into the asparagus. The leaves are dying back now, but I'm never sure if it's on purpose or if something is killing them. It happens like this every year, and I always worry about it being too early, but I always end up with decent squash.
.

Some of them are pretty big this year.
.

Looking back.
.

The Big Beefs, with poles tied across the posts for them to keep growing on.
.

Still making plenty of new ones.
.

The nearly-drowned peppers.
.

Flowering and setting fruit.
.



The other peppers (the backups) on the ends of the trellises.
.

Another angle.
.

The mystery hot purple peppers.
.

A couple of zucchinis, looking better than any have all year.
.

Another one.
.

The last of the larger watermelons still in the garden.
.

A few vines have crept through the fence and are trying to make new ones on the outside. They might have time to grow and ripen, as long as turtles don't get them.
.

The third and final cucumber, with flowers all over it. It's producing now, and has been getting picked for about a week. I hope it lasts through September.
.

Baby cuke.
.

Some kind of bee that wouldn't hold still for the camera. I don't know what it is. It's bigger than a honeybee, but smaller than a bumblebee.
.

Miragreen peas on the rest of that trellis.
.

Another trellis of Miragreen.
.

Cantaloupes.
.

Just hanging out.
.

These two look like they'll be ready soon.
.

From the outside.
.

Zucchini in the side plot.
.

Finally, some normal, healthy looking plants. I only had to wait until the end of August.
.

A big zucchini flower.
.

New plants. The stronger of these two will be the last of them.
.

I'm winding down the lettuce for the year. I might start 4 more later this week, but that'll probably be it.
.

Some goodies from last week.
.



Help yourself.
.

Watermelons.
.

Stuff from this week. It's nice to have lettuce again — Cimarron romaine in the small bowl, Red Mist leaf lettuce in the large one.
.

The largest cantaloupe of the year so far, with a steak knife for size reference.
.

Looking good.
.
- Random flowers -














.
- Trail cam shots -

Look at that, a black-faced deer. You don't see that every day.
.



*******
.

It looks like autumn has begun.
.

See you next time.
]]> Mon, 31 Aug 2020 00:51:17 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2238/the-garden-chronicles-week-19 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2238
It's been a busy couple of weeks. The corn got harvested in three pickings, each two days apart, and in it's place three rows of fall peas went in. I also dug a trench where some of the corn was standing and buried the stalks, after tying a dozen or so of them into shocks for Halloween decorations later on.
The weather hasn't been too bad. The rain stopped again, but temps have mostly been topping out in the mid to upper 80's. A cool, dry air mass is supposed to start blowing in tomorrow, so it looks like I'm about to enjoy a really beautiful week with low humidity. I can't wait. I love a mild August. As long as it doesn't portend an early frost, that is.
************

The first corn picking - August 5th.
.

Beautiful. Not all of them were this clean, though. Plenty of them had earworms at the top.
.

78 ears shucked and cleaned.
.

The second picking, two days later.
.

61 ears shucked and cleaned.
.

Some tomatoes, cukes, and a pepper from the same day.
.

More cukes from the next day.
.

The third and final picking, four days after the first.
.

45 ears shucked and cleaned.
Also, when I cleared the corn stalks away I found an additional 8 ears that I'd missed.
Tally:
Pre-pick samples - 13
First picking - 78
Second picking - 61
Third picking - 45
Found while clearing stalks - 8
Total - 205
My yearly bare minimum goal is 150, so even with all the plants I lost this year I still made my goal and then some. If I hadn't lost so many plants early on I might well have had another hundred ears. It went in late, but it turned out to be a great year for corn.
If anyone liked what they saw, the variety was "Gotta Have It" from Gurney's.
.

Cooked and rolled in butter. Hard to beat.
.

Here's the trench I dug for the stalk disposal. I started doing this about 6 years ago. I got tired of throwing away all of that perfectly good organic matter, and it's an opportunity to clear out rocks as well. Two birds with one stone.
.

Here's what lurks a few inches below tiller depth.
.

More of them. One of these years I might have the entire garden cleared of rocks down to at least two shovel depths.
.

Rocks cleared and corn stalks in. They have 7 1/2 months to decompose before the first tilling of next year's garden. It's worked every year so far. I haven't tilled any up in the spring yet.
.

Does anyone know what kind of mushroom this is? I tried to identify it online, but I couldn't find anything that looked quite like it. It's about 6 inches across.
.

Here's another one growing about 2 feet away. This one's about 5 inches across.
.

This morning at sunrise. The Sun is moving southward along the horizon as the season advances. At the equinox it should be almost dead center on the garden.
.

Not so crowded without the corn.
.

Three rows of low-trellised peas on the right. I only had enough boards for one trellis, so I guess I'm doing another experiment and the other two trellises are the control group. The variety is Maestro, which only needs about 30 inches of support. The stakes are in, but the trellises aren't on them yet. The seed is leftover from 2 years ago, so I don't know how well it'll do. I really hope it all comes up. I'm running out of time. The buried corn is on the far left. I'm going to put some spinach on top of it this week, and a row of kohlrabi between it and the peas.
.

A few peas are just starting to come up under the boards, but I'm not seeing anything in the uncovered rows yet. Another win for the boards.
.

The Rutgers tomatoes, with Touchon carrots coming up next to them.
.

Touchon is an old French heirloom variety. I kind of like it.
.

Two kinds of fall beets on the left, Detroit Dark Red and Bull's Blood, and those are the Silky Sweet Hybrid turnips on the right. I only had boards over half of these rows when I planted, but it was cool and mild that week, so it didn't seem to make much of a difference. They all germinated about the same, protected from the sun or not.
.

Here's the Bull's Blood beets that can't really be seen above. Red, red, red.
.

More fall/winter carrots. The bigger half-row is Touchon (started under boards back in June, if anyone remembers), and the new ones are Burpee's A#1 Hybrid.
.

The A#1 Hybrid seedlings.
.

Lettuce. I really need to get some more of it out here and in the ground.
.

Finally, some decent bean germination. I still can't believe the time I had with beans this year.
.

The butternut squash.
.

The variety is good old Waltham Butternut.
.

The Big Beef tomatoes, about to outgrow their posts. I have some poles I'll tie across the top for them to drape over.
.

The nearly-drowned peppers.
.

They're actually producing now. Slowly, but there are several flowers out. I hope I get a decent batch eventually.
.

The older cucumbers are about done now.
.

A couple of new zucchini plants. The scrap 2x4's are just markers so I don't step on them.
.

The rosemary is finally starting to grow. Better late than never.
.

Another new zucchini.
.

The watermelons. You can't really see them, but there are at least 7 in there.
.

This ones probably going to get picked tomorrow.
.

One of the mystery purple hot peppers in the foreground, and a regular Cal Wonder behind it.
.

The third cucumber, flowering now.
.

Some fall peas. Miragreen, the same variety I grew in the spring.
.

More Miragreen peas, and Polly investigating something in the squash.
.

The cantaloupe trellis.
.

Cantaloupes.
.

A couple more, one of them hanging.
.

Zucchini in the side plot.
.

Some new seeds under a board. Probably the last planting.
.

The middle one is producing now.
.

Lettuce in the starting planter.
.

I kept a few chunks of chert that came out of the corn trench. I hope the larger one isn't too fractured. I'd really like to have a nice, big, solid piece of it.
.

I use it for another hobby — some very amateurish flint knapping. These are some points I've made in the past out of chert from the garden and the yard.
.

That's all for now.
.

See you next time.
]]> Sun, 16 Aug 2020 15:25:48 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2230/the-garden-chronicles-week-17 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2230
More strange weather, but it's not altogether unwelcome this time. The heat and dryness continued for a week after my last post, and we were officially in moderate drought conditions, but then it was like a switch got thrown and everything changed, literally overnight. A cold front rolled in and broke the drought with almost daily rain (I got over 4 inches in just one night a few days ago), and it brought much cooler temps as well. Today has been the coolest. It's August now, but it feels more like October at the moment. The low was in the upper 50's last night, and the high today was only about 70. It's beautiful, but it's not supposed to last much longer. They're calling for highs back up around 90 by the weekend.
I decided to do more to the garden fence than just add rabbit wire to it. I'm going to paint all the posts and lay new landscape timbers all around (the old ones are rotting out). I'm also going to split the rabbit wire down the middle, putting the fine-spaced part at the bottom to overlap the existing wire (double trouble for the rabbits), and the wide-spaced part at the top, with a space in between so I can continue to reach through unobstructed. I've gotten used to being able to dump veggie kitchen scraps in a corner from the outside, without having to actually walk into the garden, especially in the winter when it's often muddy in there, and I want keep doing that.
I started working on the fence last week, but it wasn't long before I discovered I couldn't take the wire down to paint posts in the evenings (out of the heat of direct sunlight) without leaving the garden open to rabbits overnight while the paint dried. I did finish one side, but the rest is going to have to wait until later on this fall. I ran the rest of the rabbit wire around the garden and tied it up with a little twine for the time being. It's just a temporary thing, but it's stopped the rabbits in their tracks, and I've finally been able to do my fall plantings safely. It's a little later than I would have liked, but here's hoping it all makes it before the first frost.
*****
.

The south side posts. I scrubbed the rust off with a wire brush, cleaned them, and then painted them from the ground up with brown Rust-Oleum. I think it looks much better than the standard t-post paint.
.

Here's how I attach the corner braces. It's just a garden fence and doesn't need to be super strong (it's not keeping heavy livestock in or anything), so I just used t-posts at the corners, turned so that the 't' faces in at a 45° angle. I cut the ends of treated baluster posts (usually for decks or porches) at just the right angles to nest in the 't', and then clamped them in place with a stainless hose clamp. I folded small lengths of strap iron around the clamp to take the sharp off of the edge where it presses down on the baluster wood. The bottoms of the braces are attached in the same way, an inch or two off the ground to help prevent rotting.
.

I temporarily hung the wire back up with a few fence clips and some jute twine, just to give me an idea of what it will look like. Fine wire at the bottom, wider stuff at the top, and an opening in between. I won't finish it until later this fall, after the garden is mostly done. It's good enough to stop the rabbits for now, though.
.

A load of new landscape timbers, delivered by Lowe's.
.

The garden sits on a bit of a slope, and over the years the rain has shifted soil to the lower side and raised the ground a few inches. I wanted to bring the posts on that side up a little while I had the chance, and here's how I did it - a hydraulic jack and a pipe wrench. It works great.
.

I realize I haven't been taking pics of much of this stuff, so here's the last of the spring carrots and beets. The shorter carrots are a variety called Yaya, and they weren't supposed to be like that. It might have been the harsh spring, but still, I probably won't bother with them again.
.

Some of those carrots went into this, a carrot spice cake.
.

I think it might just be my favorite kind of cake. Bon appétit.
.

The rain brought the grass back to life lickety-split. I don't think I've had to mow in about a month, but I suppose I'll be back at it again before long.
.

It was cool enough this morning that I almost needed a jacket.
.

The corn.
.

Almost ready.
.

Four ears on two plants. I've even seen an ear or two on sucker stalks (they probably won't be any good, though). It turned out to be a good year for corn.
.

I've been sampling it to see how far along it is. Looks like I'll be doing a big pick in a couple of days.
.

The Rutgers tomatoes, with some new fall carrots planted under the line in front of them. They say carrots love tomatoes.
.

New fall plantings of beets, turnips, and more carrots. The beets and turnips are where the lettuce had been before. I'm trying new turnip seed, some kind of sweet white hybrid. I hope they're good. I also have some new hybrid kohlrabi seed that are supposed to grow up to 5 or 6 inches across. The package claims they only need around 45 days, so I'm going to plant a row of it (along with some more peas) where the corn is now, after it comes out, which should be pretty soon.
.

New lettuce transplants in a different place.
.

I don't have enough boards to cover all the new plantings. I wasn't expecting to have to plant my fall stuff all at once, but I had to because everything was so late this year. The wet spring (and the rabbits) messed up my normal rotation.
.

The Big Beef tomatoes. Only a few have been picked so far. They haven't started ripening up strongly yet.
.

First and second cucumbers. I've been enjoying a steady supply. It's been great.
.

The butternut squash is taking over.
.

A couple of the bigger ones.
.

A few more.
.

And a few more. There's also a little frog in this shot. Can you spot it?
.

The bird netting frame is out of the way now, so the watermelons have free rein.
.

Yet another seed packet mixup. Can you believe this? They're all supposed to be Crimson Sweets like the one on the left, but there's also a different kind on the right.
.

Any guess what kind that might be? I thought maybe Charleston Gray, but I'm not sure. The seed packagers really did a poor job this year. This is the third packet I've had with different seed mixed in (lettuce, peppers, and now watermelons).
.

The third cucumber, and probably the last. It's getting late in the season now.
.

I had a butternut squash on this trellis, but I decided it was a bad idea. I don't think the trellis is big enough, so I pulled it and planted some fall peas there instead. Those are the cantaloupe plants on the next trellis.
.

Cantaloupe.
.

One of the mystery peppers.
.

They have purple flowers and purple peppers growing up instead of down, and they're shaped like chilis. They're hot, too. I'm going to let them grow just to see how well they do. I'm not very fond of hot peppers, but I may end up cooking with a few of them before everything is said and done. Maybe in a spicy-hot stir fry or something.
.

The nearly-drowned peppers.
.

One of the backup peppers.
.

I went ahead and planted fall peas under the open trellises.
.

Polly came to visit.
.

It's been a bad year for zucchini for me. I'm basically starting over for the fall now. Up in the main garden I pulled the eggplants (which were going nowhere due to bug damage) and planted three more zucchinis in their place, in addition to the two new ones here. I'll be framing this little plot with some of those new landscape timbers later on this fall.
.

I've fallen behind on my lettuce rotation. I'll correct that shortly, though.
.

The wrens were feeding a second batch of chicks in the last post, but then they up and disappeared. I have no idea what happened. Maybe the heat killed the chicks, poor things. I might drill some ventilation holes in the back before next year. You'd think the manufacturer could have done that, but no.
.

See you next time.

]]> Tue, 04 Aug 2020 23:44:51 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2220/the-garden-chronicles-week-15 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2220
No rain yet. I've only had an inch in the past 5 weeks. The forecasted heat wave didn't fully materialize, though, so that's good. It has been getting into the mid and upper 90's, but no 100's so far.
The grass is starting to go brown, but at least I've hardly had to mow it lately. A decent trade-off in my book.
- Sunday, July 19 -

Just after sunrise.
.

Cool and pleasant.
.

Corn.
.

Starting to silk out and make ears.
.

Larry.
.

Polly's not quite sure what to make of him.
.

Rutgers tomatoes, onions.
.

I suddenly have a lettuce crisis on my hands. Some of it is trying to go to seed before I'm ready to pick it...
.

...and the next batch is being eaten by rabbits. Yep, rabbits. I caught them in the act.
.

Apparently, they pulled off a covert operation and disabled my defenses.
.

I had no idea rabbits were strong enough to do this sort of thing.
.

They've eaten some beans...
.

...and some beets. The fiends! I've already picked up some rabbit wire, and I'm going to be working on my fence in the near future.
.

Carrots.
.

Beans.
.

Butternut squash and the garden sprinkler. It was time to put it out.
.

It's just an oscillating sprinkler attached to a makeshift platform that slides down onto a t-post. The arm sticking out to the right keeps the hose from pulling down on the drive mechanism, which causes it to get stuck in one place. It doesn't quite water the whole garden, but I can clean up what it misses pretty easily.
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In operation, making it rain. I only turned it on for a minute to take this pic. I'm not actually watering in full sun or anything.
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Baby butternut squash.
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Big Beef tomatoes.
.



Starting to ripen.
.

Eggplant. Bugs are having a field day with these things. I keep having to spray them with liquid Sevin.
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The nearly-drowned peppers are really coming back strong now.
.

I was sure this one was going to die, but it's started making new leaves all of a sudden. It's the runt of the litter, I guess.
.

The backup peppers. Still going strong.
.

Flowering.
.

I think I have some mystery peppers. Two of the backups that I started from seed aren't looking right. They have different leaves...
.

... and they have purple flowers instead of white. What is up with the seed companies this year? Does anyone know what kind of pepper that might be?
.

First and second cucumbers.
.

These got picked before I started taking pictures.
.

One of these will be the third cucumber.
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Watermelon vines. They're getting close to the bird netting, so that frame needs to come out of there soon. Maybe later today.
.

Baby watermelon.
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The trellised butternut.
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Cantaloupes.
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Cantaloupe flower.
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Baby cantaloupe, with dirt on it from watering.
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Zucchini.
.

Zucchini.
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A rosemary plant that just doesn't want to grow for some reason. I think May might have stunted it a bit.
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Basil in a flower bed. It's already been picked once.
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Apple.
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The planter. Lettuce, butternut backups, and a new zucchini.
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I can't remember what these are at the moment. Sometimes flower names escape me.
[Edit: They're zinnias. Thanks Greg]
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Butterfly weed, with no visitors yet.
[Edit: Name correction, weed not bush. Thanks Dulay]
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Hibiscus.
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Begonias hanging from a tree in fiber pots.
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The humble abode.
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The rabbit wire I mentioned earlier. Four of them are for the garden fence. I'm going to make collapsible pea trellises (in folding four foot sections) out of the other one.
.

Some cukes and a zucchini from a couple of days ago. The zucchini was hiding, or it wouldn't have gotten quite so big.
.

Has anyone ever tried this stuff? I guess you pour it over sliced cucumbers and let them chill in the fridge for a while. It's supposed to make instant pickles, without canning. Should be crisp, too. No heating. I'm going to try it today or tomorrow.
.

Chipmunk.

Perfect timing. I probably couldn't get this shot again if you paid me. Apparently, the wrens have a second batch of chicks now. They keep bringing food to the birdhouse. They both showed up with food at the same time here. One went inside and presumably fed a chick, turned around, received what the other one had brought, turned back around and presumably fed another chick. Cooperation.

Trail camera pics.


I zoomed in on this one before compressing it for the blog, and this is a buck. He has antlers in velvet on his head. They were a bit hard to make out, but I think he's going to be an 8-pointer by the fall.

See you next week.
]]> Sun, 19 Jul 2020 16:33:19 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2216/the-garden-chronicles-week-14 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2216
No rain at all this past week, but the humidity dropped a bit and it was pretty nice overall. The week ahead, however, is supposed to be the hottest yet — upper 90's, with a chance of one or two 100+ days, and heat indexes of 110.
I'm not looking forward to that in the slightest, and the national weather says that much of the country east and south of me will be in the same boat. A big heat wave is coming for a lot of us.
Stay cool.
- Sunday -

Evening shade.
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It was pleasant, too. The breeze was out of the north most of the day.
.

Corn.
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Rutgers tomatoes and a few onions.
.

I though this was a potato that was coming back after surviving the May weather, but now I'm not so sure. I'm starting to think it's a wild deadly nightshade that fooled me by popping up in just the right spot. I'll let it go for a while and see what it does. If by some chance it does turn out to be a potato, I'd hate to pull it now and ruin it.
.

Lettuce. Some old ones harvested, some new ones started.
.

Carrots.
.

I see a carrot cake or two in the very near future.
.

The new carrots. I think I'm going to replant the row on the left, under boards this time. I picked up some new 8 footers.
.

Beans.
.

Where the turnips and beets were. The second batch of turnips failed. Too hot for them I suppose. Before long I'll pull those few remaining beets and prep this spot for fall beans.
.

Butternut squash next to some kohlrabi that was too small to pick before. They'll be out of there soon, though.
.

Big Beef tomatoes.
.



Eggplant.
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The nearly-drowned peppers are back to where they should have been about a month ago.
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The backup peppers are just starting to flower.
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Still picking blackberries.
.

Watermelon vines.
.

First and second cucumbers. The third has been planted on the next trellis.
.

The first one is producing heavily now.
.

They seem shorter this year. Maybe it's just that one plant. We'll see what they look like on the second plant before long.
.

I've never done this before, but I'm going to try growing a Waltham Butternut on a trellis. I hope the vines can take the weight of the squash. Wish me luck.
.

Cantaloupe. I've done this for years and I know these vines can take the weight of their own fruit. It may seem unlikely, but it's true (with small to medium size cantaloupes, that is, not the jumbos). They don't drop off until the stem goes soft when they're almost ready to eat. It's like a signal telling you which ones are ready. Pretty neat, actually.
.

Some little worms have eaten the tops of a few corn plants, but they should still put out silks for ears down below (I'm hoping so, anyway).
.

This is what the good tops look like.
.

The first Japanese beetle I've found this year. I hope it's the last one, but I know it won't be.
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Not the best year for zucchini so far. I pulled the first sickly plant, turned the soil where it was, and added some peat moss all around to increase the organic matter in the soil. I fertilized too. I'll let the empty place sit for a while and then try another one.
.

The planter.
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More blackberries and the second cobbler of the year, which, as you can see, almost bubbled over in the oven.
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Blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream.
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Salad fixings, ready to eat — leaf lettuce (small bowl), romaine lettuce (big bowl), the very first tomato of the year, and some cucumbers.
.

More cucumbers from a couple of days later.
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Leftover chicken and turnip stew ( recipe here ), but with kohlrabi in it instead of turnips. It was great. I bet I could even use kohlrabi leaves in it instead of the kale. I'm completely sold on kohlrabi now.
.

I hung a trail cam on a tree in the yard on the south side of the house, down by the creek. Bambi makes an appearance in one of the shots below.
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See you next week.

]]> Mon, 13 Jul 2020 15:36:29 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2210/the-garden-chronicles-week-13 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2210
It finally rained. I got a little over an inch a few days ago, but it wasn't much help. All it really did was green the grass up a bit, and increase the humidity. June is usually one of the wetter months, if not the wettest, but not this year. I hope it rains a good amount in July. If it doesn't, I'll be gardening in drought conditions.
It's been hot, too.  Heat indexes over 100 lately. It's even staying hot well into the evenings when I'm trying to hoe or water the garden. I could almost water the garden with sweat sometimes.
On the bright side, I haven't seen any Japanese beetles yet this year. I hope they stay away. They've been a problem in the past.

Right around sunrise this morning, with dew on the asparagus on either side of the garden. I trim them like hedges every now and then, if anyone was wondering about that. If I don't, they grow these really long messy stalks that fall all over the place and break off at the ground in strong wind.
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Hazy summer morning air.
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Corn.
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Another view.
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Rutgers tomatoes. I pruned all of the tomatoes in the garden on Wednesday. I decided on 3 vines per plant. I'd usually go with 4 or 5, but I have a few more plants than normal this year.
.

For anyone who doesn't know, indeterminate tomatoes (all I'm growing this year) are continuously vining, meaning they will go and go and go until something kills them, making new vine after new vine after new vine (from suckers, shown by arrows in the photo) until you have a giant, unmanageable mess on your hands if you don't prune them. You don't absolutely have to prune them, of course, but you'll probably need to support them with big, strong cages if you don't. I'm using stakes, so I pretty much have to prune (it would be almost impossible to tie them all up if I didn't). The suckers always grow out of the node or joint where a leaf truss connects to the vine, the 'crotch' or 'armpit' of the branch, so to speak (see red arrows).
.

To prune indeterminate tomatoes, the first thing you need to do is decide how many vines you want per plant, and then allow suckers on young plants to grow until you have that number. After that, you pinch or cut off all remaining suckers, and continue doing so for the rest of the season (3 to 5 days is a decent pruning interval). Be careful of the vine tips (they're hard to see above, but they're circled in red on this plant). The tips contain the machinery for making new vine, leaf trusses, and fruit trusses. If you pull the tip off of a vine it won't die, but it won't be able to add more new growth either. They're usually curly and have white fuzz on them (you can kind of see that in the top circle).
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I pruned all of my tomatoes to look something like this. I kept a couple early suckers coming out of the main vine (red arrows) for a total of 3 vines, and removed all other suckers. If anyone has any questions about pruning, just ask me in the comments.
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I can hardly believe this, but 2 potatoes and several onions are actually making a comeback.
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The other potato and some onions. I really thought they were going to die because of all the extra rain in May. They looked pretty bad a few weeks ago.
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Lettuce. I've finally started picking it.
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One of the Parris Island Cos romaines.
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One of the Cimarron romaines.
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Carrots. I dug a couple samples. They're almost ready.
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Here's the result of the experiment. The row on the right germinated under the boards, the row on the left didn't (it may look empty, but there are some seedlings there, fewer and smaller by comparison).
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The pathetic third try at beans. Almost laughable. They should fill out and give me some beans eventually, though.
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Say goodbye to the first batch of turnips and beets. They're getting pulled and put in the fridge tomorrow night.
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The butternut squash plants. Man, I wish they had all come up at the same time like they were supposed to. Now I have to be careful when I harvest them, to make sure the younger ones are fully mature (some will probably be mixed with older ones).
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I've been picking kohlrabi and I think I'm sold. I really like it. It grew easily from a spring planting, and you can eat the whole plant. You can put it in a salad like you would radishes, or sauté it in a little butter and eat it as a side dish, or add it to stir fry. I think you can even shred it and make slaw. The leaves are thick and cabbagy, kind of like collards. All of mine have been tender and mild so far. They're great. I honestly can't believe that I've never grown them before. The tap root is hard as heck to cut off the bottom, though. I ended up using wire cutters on them.
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The Big Beef tomatoes, pruned to 3 vines each.
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They're starting to load up.
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The nearly-drowned peppers are still making a comeback (except for that one). The eggplants behind them are too.
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They're even trying to make peppers, as small as the plants still are.
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The backup peppers are actually bigger than the other ones now. They're still busy growing, though. No peppers on them yet.
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The backup eggplants. Starting to add new growth.
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First and second cucumbers. The third will be planted on the next trellis this coming week.
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Watermelon plants.
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Blackberries still ripening. You can see the bird netting against a frame post in this shot, but nowhere else. It's there, though.
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Cantaloupes.
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Zucchini plants.
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Zucchini. I'm not sure what's on them, whether it's dew, or dirt from watering, or even some kind of mold. I didn't notice that when taking the picture. I'll have to go check on that.
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The planter with lettuce and backup Waltham Butternut. I'm thinking about putting one of the butternuts on an open trellis. I've never grown it vertically before.
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Yellow marigolds and white petunias.
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Verbena in a flower bed.
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Verbena in a flower pot.
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Cone flowers.
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Cone flowers.
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A single rose popped back out of the vines.
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The redbud trees are covered with seedpods.
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Apples on the mystery tree.
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Another one.
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Most of them fall off early like this one, though. Actually, they usually fall off when they're a lot smaller than this one. That tree is so frustrating.
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A water turtle covered in algae. Probably looking for a spot to lay some eggs. They do that all over the front yard. I don't know why they lay them so far away from the water, but they do.
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Some kohlrabi and a couple of cucumbers from the garden.
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Blackberries.
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See you next week.
]]> Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:55:28 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2206/the-garden-chronicles-week-12 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2206
It hasn't rained in almost 3 weeks, not since the remnants of Cristobal blew over. After a crazy amount of spring rain, it's just hot and dry now.
Figures, right?
- Wednesday -

The germination under boards experiment.

It worked well.

I think I'll start doing it regularly. I'll need to pick up some more boards, though. 

Pretty good results for a hot, summer planting.

There were 3 toads and a cricket frog enjoying the dampness under the boards. Here's one of the toads next to the hole he wallowed out for himself, right in the middle of my seed row. 

Here's the cricket frog.
- Sunday -

The gate's back with a fresh coat of paint.

I cleaned the finished peas out of the 2 middle trellises.

Corn.

It's growing fast.

The Rutgers tomatoes.

Lettuce.

Carrots.

The new carrot plantings. The row on the right was under the boards. I know it's hard to see, but it came up much better than the other one.

Finally some beans. Not exactly impressive growth, though. They were coming up strong, and then several just up and died for some reason. I found an old packet of seed from 2018 and used it to fill in the gaps. It's starting to come up between the bigger plants (and it's 2 years old). Must be a bad year for bean seed or something.

Turnips and beets.

I've started pulling them.

Kohlrabi.

Filling out now. I've never grown these before, but I think they're almost ready.

The Big Beef tomatoes.

The biggest one so far.

A few more.

The backup eggplants in the ground with stakes. The other ones aren't doing well, so these are the last chance for success this year.

Blackberries starting to ripen. The netting is on the frame now to protect them from birds, but it's invisible to the camera, apparently.

Watermelon plants. 

All but one of the nearly-drowned peppers are putting on new growth.

1st and 2nd cucumber plants.

Starting to produce.

The backup peppers are growing pretty well.

Cantaloupes, with a pepper on the end of the trellis.

Three butternut squash plants. The one in the foreground is small because I had to replant it. The kohlrabi on the right will be done and gone before the squash needs that space.

The zucchini side plot.

Several zucchini coming on.

The planter, with two batches of lettuce and some backup butternut squash that I'm probably going to toss.

What's left of the beets and turnips I picked above. The beets are cooked and cut up, the turnips are raw and cut up, and that's a bowl of beet greens that have been cleaned up (bug damage and stems removed) but haven't been cooked yet.

See you next week.
]]> Sun, 28 Jun 2020 21:44:58 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2198/the-garden-chronicles-week-11 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2198
It seemed pointless to post a week 9 blog just 3 days after week 8.5, and I was too busy last weekend to post a week 10 (these things take quite a while to make), so I'm just going to call this one week 11. It's a couple of days early, but hey, that's close enough (and close enough is the widely accepted standard with horseshoes, hand grenades, and garden blogs, I believe). 
It's been a mostly dry and hot couple of weeks, and it finally feels like summer.
The corn is up, though I've lost several plants. I lose some every year, of course, but this year is a little worse than normal. Some of the seed in two separate rows got washed out by a storm just a couple of nights after it was planted (2 inches of rain in about 45 minutes); a few just didn't come up (which is normal); and I can't prove it, but I think birds have been pecking away at a few more (there one day, gone the next... go figure). There's still plenty of it growing, though. I always want at least 150 ears at harvest time every year, but if I only get 100 or so I guess it'll be fine. Less shucking, anyway.
The greenhouse is done selling their garden veggies for the year, so I missed out on getting new peppers to replace the ones that almost drowned the last week of May. They're still in the ground, and are pretty small, but they're finally starting to put on some new green leaves up top, so they may produce after all. If not, I went ahead and stuck my 8 backup peppers in the ground at either end of the 4 trellises.
I also put my backup tomatoes in the ground, just for the heck of it. I drove some stakes for them right down the middle of the onions and potatoes, which look to me to be as good as goners anyway.
I had to replant the second batches of beets and carrots, and I had to replant the beans for a third time. I don't think I've ever had to try this hard to get green beans going. They're usually one of the easiest things to grow, and tend explode vigorously out of the ground right on the first try, especially when the ground is warm. I switched to different seed this time, and the ground is definitely warm now, so hopefully they'll be coming up strongly in the next couple of days or so. The first two tries were with seed I got from the greenhouse, which may have been bad. This new seed came from a farm store.
I got the urge to learn how to post homemade videos this week, so there's a few short ones at the end. Mostly an experiment.
Oh, and the spring peas got picked last week.
- Last Thursday -

Plump pods, ready for picking.

I picked about 3 gallons off those 2 small trellises. Growing them was effortless, and now I wish I'd planted the whole back garden fence with them as well. I hope the fall crop that I'm going to plant later on grows as well as the spring one did.

Full, clean pods. Great variety - Miragreen. These had 9 peas per pod (one fell out just as I was taking the picture), but several had up to 11 in them.

They shelled out to about a gallon's worth.
- Yesterday -

The gate is missing because I took it down for painting. It's finally dry enough.

Starting to fill up.

Corn with gaps here and there. Still going to have a good amount, though.

The backup tomatoes in with the onions. They're Rutgers, from seed.

More lettuce transplants went in this past week.

The first carrots, and the replanted second batch behind. Those boards are an experiment. I'm trying to see if shading from the summer sun helps prevent drying out and overheating for better germination compared to the row next to it. I'll take them off as soon as they come up.

Turnips and beets, with empty bean row bottom left (Grrr).

Kohlrabi.

The replanted bean row, with extra potting soil worked in for good measure.

The other tomatoes. They're Big Beef's from the greenhouse.

What the... Surprise, surprise. I doubt it'll be ready by the 4th (which is my yearly goal), but still, it looks like the universe is starting to play nice. *knock on wood*

These are the peppers that almost drowned in May. They have a few new green leaves coming out on top, so who knows? Maybe they'll produce after all. They'll be late, but hey, so is everything else. Eggplants behind.

Watermelon seeds coming up in the corner behind the blackberries.

Speaking of blackberries. Not quite there yet, but coming along.

Cucumber plant. Looking good.

Baby cucumber.

Second cucumber planting coming up.

Pepper backups at the end of the trellises. This is where I tried to grow to some chard, but it didn't come up in the late May soak, and I decided I'd rather do this than replant it. 

A few remaining pea pods that weren't ready when I picked before. They got picked later this day, though. Got another meal's worth out of them.

Backup cantaloupe seedlings coming up next to failed May transplants.

The rest of the pepper backups, on the other side of the trellises.

The first butternut squash plant to come up.

Another view of the corn.

This is my separate zucchini side plot. Those white balls on the posts are for safety. I don't want to bend over and put an eye out on one of those low, hard-to-see things. They're just table tennis balls with holes drilled in one side to fit the post. They're also on the pepper posts in the main garden, but I forgot to mention them above.

The first zucchini is looking pretty good now. It dropped the baby zucchini it had on it, just like I expected, but it's growing well now and should set many more in the weeks to come.

The second zucchini greened up, started growing, and saved itself from getting pulled.

The third was direct-seeded, and is just now coming up.

The planter is looking a little bare at the moment. Just one batch of lettuce and a couple of backup eggplants. There'll be some more new lettuce pots in there shortly, though. I grow lettuce constantly, all summer long. 

Purple clematis growing up some twine hanging from the side of the front porch.

Ivy geranium in a hanging pot.

Lilies.

Lily.

Oxeye sunflowers.

Mulberry trees are starting to set fruit. I don't know what's causing the dark spots on the leaves, bugs or disease.
Yucca in full bloom.

The rabbits are happy this year. I keep seeing them bunny hopping each other and flopping over on their sides. I had to look the flopping over thing up. Apparently, they do that when they're really content. I wish I could get a picture of it.




See you next week.
]]> Thu, 18 Jun 2020 22:16:25 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2183/the-garden-chronicles-week-8-1-2 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2183
This is several days late because week 8 turned out to be the wettest yet. I think the ground stayed completely saturated for at least 4 days straight. It killed the tomatoes and the eggplants, and finally got to the peas (not so indestructible after all). One trellis of peas is definitely stunted and yellowing, but the other fared much better, somehow.
Unfortunately, the onions and potatoes have about had it. The lettuce and the first batches of turnips, beets, and kohlrabi all seem stunted, and the beans and chard never even came up (pretty sure they germinated and then drowned). I think about half of the peppers will need to be replaced.
What a spring.
Some good news, though: This year's freaky month of May has finally ended, and the way-too-frequent rain seems to have ended right along with it. Also, the greenhouse still had plenty of plants, so I picked up some new tomatoes and eggplants, and I finally managed to plant the corn.
-- Sunday --

Corn planting prep. Before tilling.

First tiller pass, a maple seedling, various other weeds, and mud cracks.

After tilling it was getting late, so I raked it smooth and called it a day.
-- Monday --

Here's how I plant corn. First, I scratch measurement marks in the soil.

Then I drive a guide line in at the first mark, and start making furrows.

After each furrow, the line gets moved to the next mark.

Done and ready for seeds. The furrow at the bottom right is for replanting beans.

I rig up a simple corn planting tool like this every year. It's a piece of PVC pipe with a 6" vice grip clamped to one end, and a paint stir stick taped to the vice grip. I drop a seed through the pipe and measure off of it with the stick to determine the placement of the next one. Almost perfect seed spacing, and no bending over.

Polly approves.
-- Wednesday --

I got out early in the morning to take the rest of the pics.

This is a frame I made a few years back for bird netting to protect the blackberries while they're ripening. All the connections are marked for quick and easy assembly every year. The netting isn't on it yet, but will be soon.

New eggplants and the peppers, about half of which are looking sickly after the long soak.

A cucumber plant that's actually growing. Go figure.

Empty chard row. I'll have to replant.

I've lost several onions, and the remaining ones are all yellowing at the tips. The potato sample is down to 4 sickly plants.

The lettuces look healthy enough, but haven't grown much at all. Those are spotty carrots above them.

Turnips and beets. I'm thinking both should be twice this size by now. Second batches coming up behind them.

Kohlrabi. I've never grown these before, but I suspect they should be bigger as well.

Replacement tomatoes.

Rain killed the first eggplants, and now flea beetles are attacking the new ones.

The rain finally damaged the peas. Mostly on that one trellis, though.

The other trellis still looks pretty good. Both are setting pods now.

The chief inspector arrives.

She's like, "It'll have to do."

It's nice and warm now, so I'll be direct seeding zucchini from here on out. The transplants are having a heck of a time this year. That second one might get pulled if it doesn't green up and start growing.

Yup, that's a baby zucchini. It'll probably rot and drop off, though. That always seems to happen to the first ones, for me at least. I don't know if I've ever seen leaves curl like that. Must be because of all the stress this one's gone through.

The planter. Same stuff as before, just a little bigger now.

Another batch of lettuce, and the backup peppers.

Rose.

Lilies.

Lilies.

Lilies.

Not a lily.

Bumblebee on honeysuckle.

Honeybee on honeysuckle.

Wild daisies.

Still blooming. It's been weeks. I should dig a few up and put them in the yard somewhere, maybe around the little pond. I think they're perennials.

Here comes Peter Cottontail.

This made me laugh. Apparently, a woodpecker decided this old bird house needed a bigger front door, so he (she?) carried out some home improvement. I'll have to keep an eye on it now, to see what's nesting in it.

See you next time.
]]> Wed, 03 Jun 2020 14:57:26 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2169/the-garden-chronicles-week-7 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2169
Sure enough, the year I decide to try a garden blog ends up having one of the wettest springs on record. It was finally supposed to be dry and clear this past week, but of course, it wasn't. Monday and Tuesday were cloudy all day, and cool (again), but at least it didn't rain, and by Wednesday evening the garden was dry and I was able to get the rest of my rows planted. I took some pictures of that, and then planned to put the corn in on Friday evening (I was busy Thursday), but as usual of late, that was not to be.
It rained overnight on Thursday, well into Friday morning, and I had to wait until Saturday afternoon before I could get back into the garden to see if I could plant the corn. Needless to say, it was still too wet for that, but I was able to clean it up a bit and take some more pictures.
And, yet again, the forecast is not looking good. The recently transplanted tomatoes and eggplants haven't reacted very well at all to sitting in sopping wet ground for several days already, and I have absolutely no idea when I'll be able to plant the corn.
I mean, look at this crap...

Nice temps, but good chances of rain for the next 9 days in a row. Can you believe that? I'm just so sick of it.
Anyway, these are the pictures I have for this week.
-- Wednesday --

Furrows and holes.

A furrow for some Ruby Red chard that I decided to squeeze in above the trellises.

Polly.

Next to a furrow I was ready to plant, not getting in the way at all...

I asked her to move, so she went to keep an eye on the peas.

Sad faced, because I told her she was about to be in the way again.

I'm a softy when it comes to her, so she won. I planted the chard later, after she moved.

Beans.

New lettuces. The bright red one at the bottom is a romaine called Cimarron.

Maple tree seedlings pop up everywhere this time of year. This one's near some asparagus.

This one is where the corn should be. They come up fast. I found several more, even out in the too-wet-to-mow yard. The ones in the garden got hoed down.
-- Saturday --

Wet again.

The asparagus is really shooting up.

All the wetness isn't working out for my potato sample. I only had a small bag to begin with, and one plant never even came up. Now a couple more are rotting in the ground before they can even bush out. The onions aren't looking bad, though. I've lost a few, but the rest are doing about as well as can be expected.

The lettuces, 3 days and a rainstorm later.

The first carrots are finally visible, but with a few washouts in places. I really need to figure out a way to protect germinating carrot seeds from the weather. Long boards maybe?

The bean row.

Turnips and beets.

Kohlrabi.

Near-drowned tomatoes. Not looking good at all. This breaks my heart. Damn rain. I may need to replace them. I still have some backups in the planter.

Where the corn should be. *sigh*

Blackberries still blooming away.

The peppers look fine so far, but the 2 eggplants are wilting. They're closely related to tomatoes, so it makes sense that they'd be suffering too.

A new cucumber plant. I gave up on the old one and pulled it, giving the whole trellis panel to this new one.

The chard row after Polly let me plant it. Nothing up yet, of course.

The cantaloupe plants aren't looking very good. I'll direct-seed some backups next to them, just in case.

The peas are starting to get up there.

They're even starting to bloom.

Zucchini. First and second plants.

The first one is finally starting to look normal.

It's warmer now, so the second one won't go through what the first one did.

Spare tomatoes, spare eggplants, another cucumber, and some lettuce in the planter. I have spare peppers as well, but they're in a separate tray and I forgot to take a picture of them.

A baby apple. This tree never produces well. It was supposed to be a self-pollinator (which is why there's only one tree), but it didn't turn out to be the variety it was supposed to be at all. I have no idea what variety it actually is. It's a mystery apple. Some years it does well, others not so much. Probably because it really isn't self-pollinating, and the bees have to pollinate it from nearby crabapples in the yard, which are usually in bloom before it. Sometimes they don't overlap each other very well. They didn't this year.

Yucca plants sending up flower stalks.

Roses.

See you next week.
]]> Sun, 24 May 2020 02:59:03 -0400 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2165/the-garden-chronicles-week-6 http://thenewstalkers.com/dig/blog/2165
It's been cloudy and rainy for the better part of the past 2 weeks. Today it stopped around noon, gave me a few hours for picture taking, and then started back up again (with a little thunder and lightening) while I was inside sorting the images for this post. Temps are pretty much back to normal, though, so at least there's that.
Thursday was cloudy, but mostly rain free, and that evening I was able to get the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in the ground. I still haven't been able to clear out all the rocks that I raked up last Sunday, but the weather is supposed to be nice and rain-free this coming week, so I should be able to get it done soon. The corn will go in this coming week as well. Normally, I would have planted it yesterday (the 15th), but the weather obviously had different plans for me this year.
*******

It's a swamp at the moment.

Standing water everywhere.

Flooded asparagus.

Tomatoes.

Big enough to start flowering.

2 eggplants (top), and 8 peppers.

Peas. Looks like I have a straggler, probably beat down by the rain.

Cucumber. No growth to speak of. It's almost time to plant the second one, and this one is still going nowhere.

The cantaloupe transplants went in on Monday evening, during a lull in the rain.

So did a rosemary plant, next to the blackberries.

Onions and potatoes.

Turnips and beets.

Kohlrabi.

An earthworm near some carrot sprouts, trying not to drown.

The lettuces. There should be 6 more in the ground with them by now, but they're still in the planter because of the rain.

Blackberry blossoms galore.

That's an out-of-focus honeybee on a blackberry blossom. Sorry about the poor quality.

Yup, the pitiful-looking zucchini is trying to flower, even though it's so small. I think the cool, wet weather has stressed it out and made it think it needs to hurry up and reproduce.

Basil in a flower bed.

Mint in a flower bed, next to the back deck.

Lettuce seedlings.

Lettuce and other stuff in the planter. Some of this really needs to go in the ground soon.

The snowballs are done already. I think the late frost last week did them in.

This little guy is trying to be a pink lilac bush.

His bigger brother has barely started blooming.

That's supposed to be a lawn, not a rice paddy.

I was trying to get a shot of this big water turtle that was swimming around in the pond, but he was camera shy, so I settled for a reflection of the tree instead.

The woods after the rain. Spring green.

Wild blackberries blooming in the woods.

Wild daisies (I think).

Here's what passes for a flood and a waterfall when you live right at the top of the watershed.

The new hanging wren house.

An unintentional hanging wren house. Found this nest in a hanging flower pot on the front porch. I think they're wren eggs, at least. Haven't been able to catch a glimpse of the mama bird checking in on them yet.

The glorious old oak on the way to the garden. I love this tree.

See you next week.

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