Unspeakable Acts

Kelly, avert your eyes!

Yes, those are all bush bean plants that had just started producing well that I just pulled out of the bed!  Contender, Yellow Wax & Dragon's Tongue.

Why?  Because I took the intensive planting methods a bit far this year I think.  I had them stuffed into the pepper bed and my peppers weren't getting any light.  No time to raise more peppers but I still have plenty of time for beans, so it wasn't a hard decision.  I did wait, however, until my new bean area had all sprouted successfully.  All the new beans are up about 2 inches high where the Amish Paste tomatoes met their early fate.

Below are the peppers now, free of beans and able to get the sun.  If this year has taught me anything, it's that closely planted things can allow disease to run rampant, so out they went.  I expect the peppers will ripen much better this way, this was the first year I crowded them with anything else but their own kind in my quest for the "cottage look", but cottage quickly turned into the "hoarder look" LOL

At least I got another dinner's worth of beans before yanking them!

The Brandywines are a freak show out there, that's a regular grocery-store size tomato in my hand... and no, I don't live near a nuke plant.  This looks like a banner year size-wise so that's why I'm really hoping they can ripen and stay healthy.

It's not just one, either... they all look that size!

The latest intruder, not sure what yet... could be canine but I'm thinking not, since they don't really stay outside long enough to work so hard at seeking shade.  This is also the garden fence that seems to be getting dug out, so I'm thinking intruder alert!

Lastly, we have some wildlife news... congrats to Mama Dove!  She survived the weird cyclone storm we had when her nest and eggs got blown to the ground and cracked, set two more eggs and survived I don't know how many downpours in her swinging basket up there but there are her new babies!  

Now I have to be super alert when I let the dogs out, since she will have them out and about in no time.

It's Closing Time...

... you don't have to go home, but you CAN'T. STAY. HERE!

Round 1 Eliminations were held last night, first to leave are the cucumbers covered with bugs!

They are horribly covered in squash bugs of all life stages...

This is the first bit of space created for the fall garden... what you can't see is the hundreds of squash bugs running for the hills!

I splurged and paid $8.99 for a large bottle of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap to make my own insecticidal soap. I had been balking at the price but you only need 2 tbsp to make a quart! The level in the bottle has barely moved after making 2 quarts! Plus this stuff can be used for all sorts of things around the home.

And it WORKS!

Stopped the squash bug in his tracks! Why did I wait soooo long to do this?

Unexpected Bonuses:

1. The peppermint smell will act as a bit of a deterrent if used in the early stages of the garden before they have established their stronghold (too late for me)!

B. If you are bored, the label on the soap bottle makes for fun reading!

Excuse the obscene abbreviation, but WTF? These are my yard-long beans! Luckily I only found one like this.

Check out the critter party aftermath on the J. Gyllenhaal!

I admit defeat at this point.

Here is today's harvest. Romas are rolling in now, but were crawling with squash bug nymphs and have BER. I've been sowing beans all through the heat of summer and basically been wasting my seeds until now. They are finally starting to come in again. Yellow Wax are looking to be winners again and new for me is Contender green bush bean which has just started to trickle in but are nice looking. I gave the Dragon's Tongue another go but sadly this variety will not be reappearing in my garden. I was hoping for a different outcome in the summer vs. spring, but they look even worse. They are colored beautifully when about an inch long, but lose their luster within a day and leaving them longer doesn't help. Not suited as well for my area I guess, although I will say the ones harvested in May were better, but not as good as the other varieties.

A few good things...

love, love, love yard-long beans! I love walking through them growing on the arch in the garden, love the blooms, love the way they taste, love the way they look in my wok, the love is rivaling my Subaru Love, and that's a good thing...

Then came school shopping for the kids...

don't take a sip of that coffee because you will probably snort it out...

HA!

While wandering around T.J. Maxx I put these on and my kids were horrified!

Finnegan: "mommy, take them off before you fall down!"

Lochlann: "you don't look like you would be a very good mom in those"...

Note in the above photo how there is about 2 inches between the top of the shoe and my knee, these would be good for gals who are like 6'2 !

OK, I don't want to offend any of you who "this is your thang"- but I will go ahead anyways - I'm a Birkenstock/Teva/Flippy-Floppy Gal, and these are utterly ridiculous! So hey, if you are in the "middle-age tween crowd" (heard that term today!) puh-leeze don't wear these, you look unstable, both mentally and physically LOL!

... but I'm thinking they might be good squash bug squishing shoes! Maybe hang them like a windchime to serve as a warning to insect evildoers?

Wait til my kids are about 14, they probably won't go anywhere with me!

Thunderstorms all day for next 2-3 days, so I think the garden will be done for by this weekend and it will be time for Round 2 Eliminations... I'm thinking it will definitely involve tomatoes.

Hot Weekend!

This weekend has been a hot one! Heat index at 100, and I think this weather is here to stay. Every year I am blown away by how HOT & HUMID it is here. I definitely think that there is no "getting used to it" for this northern raised gal. It took me a few days to remember what my summer routine is, but now I think I have got it down again. Water & harvest the garden every morning early - like "still in my jammies" early - that way any sweat generated and bean vine allergies can be washed away by my morning shower routine and clean clothes! It took me about a week of "getting ready" first and then going outside at 8 a.m. only to be soaked in sweat 15 minutes later to remember how to do this! We are back to 7 am & jammies & bean picking!

I won't bore you with more bean harvest photos, just figure this exact photo, approx 1 lb of each variety happens every 24-36 hours!

Here's how the weekend shaped up for us -

Friday night -

3 hours of alone time for mommy! Our local YMCA does "Parents Night Out" one night a month and I take advantage of it every month, whether I have plans or not! This has taken on a whole new importance since hubby left for deployment, since that is the only 3 hours I get all month without the kids. No more leaving the kids with daddy while I get my haircut, go grocery shopping, etc... 3 hours is all I get! This Friday night I had no plans whatsoever. Sometimes I like to just go to the bookstore, enjoy a coffee and browse all night, but with limited funds even that can turn into a bad idea, so I opted to go right back home and just enjoy my garden and my house by myself for a change. I had spent the better part of the day cleaning and mopping floors, windows, etc. so it was really nice to be able to walk barefoot around the house that night without the kids bringing in gravel, sand, etc all over the floor - ah, the little things in life!

That got kind of boring after awhile so I went out to see what the garden had in store for me. More beans, of course. I have plenty stowed in the freezer already so I decided to see what else I could do with them. I have tons of dill that is really not slated for anything else since my cukes are a long way off still for pickles, and I have other baby dill plants for them so I harvested some dill heads and foliage, grabbed some of my freshly harvested garlic, some grape leaves, nasturtium flowers, and dug out my dried hot peppers from last year.

Can you see where this is going? How about if you picture a bottle of vinegar in the above photo?

DILLY BEANS!

I'm not crazy enough to consider dragging out my canning supplies with only 3 hours to myself, but I did make 4 jars of "refrigerator dilly beans". They will be consumed with no problem with the decent shelf life they have in the fridge. I also had enough leftover dill that I made an herbed vinegar with the dill, garlic, and Nasturtiums just for pretty-ness! Now if my second sowing of lettuce will hurry up so I can try it on a salad! I may even try it on fish, my kids love Malt Vinegar so maybe we will try this out and see what they think.

Remember those first 2 tomatoes I harvested Friday night? One I ate fresh right in the garden, the other I decided to put on top of some nachos! This one is for hubby, he is the Nacho-Maker around here. I did okay having to fend for myself - we still have 7 jars of my pickled jalapenos from last season so I used those, Jack cheese, and my fresh tomato. They weren't as good as when he makes them, of course, but they weren't bad!

Saturday -

A couple of weeks ago, Kelly from "How My Garden Grows" asked if I had ever gotten around to getting that ice cream maker I wanted last year. Why, no, I hadn't! She lit a fire under me to revisit that idea again, and I finally did it! We have used it 3 times in 2 weeks, so I think it is going to prove a useful purchase. Granted, this is another one of those things that maybe isn't the most "cost-effective" of purchases since they aren't that cheap, and the ingredients aren't that cheap either, but - there is something to be said for having fresh ice cream that only contains milk, cream, and whatever you flavor it with such as fresh fruit or chocolate bits, etc. Not a chemical in sight in my kitchen or in our bodies, nice! Thanks for reminding me Kelly, we love it and will be sure to use it often this summer & if you come across a great recipe, please share it!

Saturday Night's Ice Cream Batch - Mint Chocolate Chip!

Sunday -

More beans. A handful of Raspberries!

And a trip to the store for a $5 Slip n Slide... it's HOT!

Dinner was a yummy Stir Fry with all my garden goodies and a few things from last season's freezer supply, I think I have finally cleared out the bell pepper strips! I wanted to take a pic of that for hubby, but we were so hungry it was gone before I remembered! Of note: kids ate beans and carrots in the stir fry! Yay! Still won't eat the onions, broccoli, or pepper strips...

After dinner, dogs were brushed and given a pedi-pedi. (Yes, this is boring stuff, but it serves as hubby's link to what we are up to. He reads this out on the ship and all your comments, I think it helps him feel connected to the outside world!)

Tonight, kids are going to bed early and I am giving myself a mani-pedi! Can you believe my kids are still in school here? Madness, I say! There is something very wrong with a public school system that keeps kids in school until the end of June. We have had snow the past several years, always have hurricane & Nor'easter days so you would think they would start figuring that in and lengthen the days a bit to compensate or something!

Stay Cool!

(oh sweet! I hear thunder outside, that means no watering tomorrow!)

An Unexpected Harvest & Reviews!

Not sure why it was unexpected, other than it was 90 degrees at 8:30 am and I had only planned on watering the garden and then hiding out the rest of the day! Alas, the heat and humidity over the past week had other plans in store for me! Since my tomato issues had me preoccupied the whole week, other things were left on auto pilot and went unnoticed until today! Here they are, along with my personal observations since they are mostly all new varieties to me this year:

Today's Harvest

1.0 lbs carrots (Purple Haze, Cosmic Purple, St. Valery), 1.0 lbs Dragon Langerie Beans, 11 oz Heirloom Yellow Wax Beans, 4.5 lbs Peas

'Purple Haze' Carrots - hard as a rock, horrible tasting, my dog who loves carrots wouldn't eat them, will not grow again!

'Cosmic Purple' (don't have a close-up) are purple splashed with orange - while moderately interesting, had a tough core and not enough good about them to make me grow them again

'St. Valery' grew very well here, crunchy yet tender, carrot-ey, passed the Finnegan taste test so it must be good! This was free seed I got last year from Baker Creek, otherwise I wouldn't have grown it - will order more next year. I grew it last year, but didn't get a decent germination or harvest, Granny's seed mats made the difference this year!

I do understand that these may perform differently in other areas/zones, but for me, they are the hits and misses!

Dragon Langerie (Dragon's Tongue)

I know a lot of us jumped on this bandwagon this year, and how could I refuse the delightful photos in the seed catalogs? They must be hugely popular this year since mine were backordered for a long time. Other than their beauty on the vine, these fell short of expectations in my garden. They are beautiful however! Tip for picking, they lose color and get huge VERY quickly! The color is most intense while small, also more tender and tasty then. They do of course, lose color after cooking and in my opinion there are other beans that taste far superior. My summation: grow these if you want to have beautiful things in your garden during a outdoor dinner party as people walk around and ooh & ahhh over things, but in the kitchen they fell short for me.

Dragon's Tongue after blanching

Now on to what I consider the superstar bean of the century! Why have I never grown these before????

Heirloom Golden Wax Bean

I can't say enough about these - slender, pretty, great bean flavor, tender, the easiest bean to snap the ends off I have ever encountered. Bush bean that produces like a pole bean. I will be picking these daily from just 1/2 of a raised bed's worth. After blanching, no color loss, still snappy, I will definitely use these to mix with my green pole beans when they come in for beautiful bags of frozen beans in the winter, and they will make for great Dilly Beans once I am ready to start canning. For those that want to know, I got this seed from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and I will be ordering more pronto. On the website, their picture looks like the beans are a little too mature for me, harvested skinny like mine they are extremely tasty and pretty! Tip for harvesting, don't wear polarized sunglasses, that's how I got some that were still light green, LOL!

(they still taste just as good this way)

Heirloom Golden Wax Bean - still gorgeous after blanching!

I could not have done all 5 lbs of peas today without my child laborers!

Marley underfoot while we are working, she had little green peas all over her by the time the kids were done shelling, I'm just glad they didn't spill the whole bowl on her, she might have actually woken up!

For those of you who wanted to see the Food Saver in action, here it is!

I put the entire harvest into the freezer today since the chances for me cooking a decent meal this weekend are non-existent! It is in the upper 90's so we will probably go to the beach tomorrow evening once it cools off and eat sandwiches.

What about tonight? The USO is putting on free concerts for a Military Appreciation Festival on the beach all weekend and tonight I will be toes-in-the-sand watching Hall & Oates! I am showing my age now, but I am excited to see them, and although they are old now guess what? So am I, LOL! And yes, the kids are coming with me! Should be a fun evening, even if a hot one!

Twilight, Anyone?

Wow, I am really bad about blogging lately! You all have been on my mind, and I have been reading your blogs religiously, but I am ashamed to admit... I have been consumed with reading the 'Twilight' Saga! (you can let out a big collective groan now!) Up until 2 weeks ago, I was one of the people that made fun of adults reading teen literature! I was discussing with my neighbor and friend how much I miss getting lost in a good book and the subject of the 'Twilight Series' came up and the fact that she just finished them. Well, she's my age so I made fun of her but at the same time told her that I just couldn't find time lately to get to the library and stock up on some good fall reading. She then told me that I should give the saga a try, to which I responded that I didn't think I would like them, and I really prefer long reads that will take me more than an hour. "Hang on" she replied, and ran into her house and came back with a beautiful set of 4 thick hardcovers! Needless to say, I didn't realize teen literature had expanded to include more than a hundred pages, lol, and eagerly dove in! I have been reading since then whenever I get more than 5 minutes of a chance, and am now into the 4th and last book. I must admit, vampires are pretty cool guilty pleasure reads, and a little more gripping than my Master Gardener manual, although that's pretty gripping stuff too sometimes! So go ahead, let the comments roll on that one!

My Celosia is looking quite "Vampire-ish" and I hope it lasts until my party Saturday evening!

Other than reading and shuttling kids around, I have been busy doing general cleanup and the occasional bean picking. The bell peppers are now finished, and the beans are on their 3rd "pick" and looking good. We had our 1st light frost last night, it got down to 39 degrees, but up to 70 for the high and supposed to be 80 tomorrow! I am just so glad to see the sun after the last 5 days of gray, cold and rain. I know many of you were dealing with the same nor'easters that moved through my area so I won't complain too much.

I planted some garlic last week that was from last year's box of sets and it sprouted yesterday! I was pretty worried since they have been sitting in a cardboard box for the past year on my desk, but they popped their heads up during the cold rainy spell. They were the only residents of my garden that appreciated the dreary weather.

This is the last of the Bell Peppers, 3.5 lbs

Today's harvest of pole beans, 3.15 lbs was added to last week's pick of 2.14 lbs.

This should say something about my children's eating habits - I have a family of 4 yet these are my "serving size" bags! Pretty much just my husband & I and a few extras just in case the kids decide to surprise me one day. I have exhausted every possible means of bribing them, taking things away, point systems with rewards, even force feeding at one particularly awful "bad Mommy" moment! Any other ideas?

How very cool is THIS GUY?!! This photo was from my Master Gardener class last week on Entomology. Yes, he is as big as he looks compared to the other insects! Not a very focused picture though, took it with the iphone. I need to start bringing a real camera to school I think!

I never imagined I would have a second flush of toddlers in the Black Swallowtail Daycare! I was looking at my fennel the other day and there were at least 20 on there ranging in age from the 1st instar stage all the way to full-on caterpillar action! I have recently found a bunch more on the dill in my raised bed garden, but since that is the last of their food reserves out there I am leaving them to it, there is gobs of dill so they should leave all my other stuff alone.

The next few days will be spent doing fun stuff in anticipation of our Harvest Party Saturday. You know, the usual... flinging blood on tablecloths, stabbing scarecrows with knives, calculating how much booze needs to go into the bloody punch bowl... good times! I hope to get some pics when when we do our "trial run" Friday night, just in case The Ghostess with the Mostess has a little too much punch and forgets to take pics during the party, lol!