I'm not having fun anymore!

Gardening here has officially turned into "foraging"!  Due to daily temps in the upper 90's and weeks of daily rain, the garden is a complete nightmare.  Although we have sand for soil here so drainage is normally not a problem, our high water table at about 6-12 feet has now been saturated so the ground is a kind of squishy yuck.  The mosquitoes have taken on B-horror movie status and everything outside appears to be growing tentacles!   The absolute last thing I want to do is work out there.  Last night we went out at 7:30 to at least pull some weeds and try and dry out some of the things around the patio/living area since we are having out of town visitors next week, but we were eaten alive in the hour we were out there.


Here's some gross:  the rain and humidity and heat were so bad that our outdoor fiber rug on the cement patio had algae growing on it!  I'll spare you photos of that scrubbing evolution.  I'm hoping to at least get the gravel perennial beds and sitting area cleaned up. Hubby's sister and brother in law that are coming are from Arizona and are used to heat, but she's well into her summer pregnancy and I fear she may suffer greatly when hit with our humidity here!


There are SVB killed squash vines that need to be pulled, tomatoes that need to have blight trimmed, a couple of the Hillbilly plants have to be ripped out they are so far gone.  I won't even talk of the grapevines and weeds that have taken over...


This is my pathway in front of the garden, you can see the grapevines have now crossed over into the perennial garden and have started attaching themselves to the ornamental grasses.  Above that it's hard to see but the Scarlet Runner beans have crossed over at head level and attached themselves to the Purple Vitex tree LOL.  I need a machete and a bug suit!

In the photo below it looks pretty enough, but on closer inspection, some of the yard long beans have wrapped all around the Poblano peppers and there are BUGS everywhere!

In the shade all of the oregano is blooming and alive with bees.  I just allow it to self sow every year and my oregano patch is now huge and is a regular part of the perennial gravel patio area.

The harvest yesterday -

I made an easy pasta salad with some of the tomatoes and peas from the freezer with balsamic dressing and feta, easy dinner, but it didn't make a dent in the tomatoes LOL, I'll be saucing again tomorrow after harvesting a few more.

Yesterday brought the largest Brandywine of the season so far at 2 lbs, 1 oz - even if it does look like a butt :)

The loads of tomatoes ripening are almost all picked out, tomato plants don't set fruit well when temps are in the 90's consistently, so I'm hoping the plants make it to late August and September when they really kick into their final big production.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 100 degrees with super high humidity so the heat index will be well above that - you would think I would take advantage of the mere 90's we are having today to get some work done? - NO WAY!  We're going to the beach!  I'm purposely not heading to the beach until after lunch so I can pack a dinner of easy sandwiches since I know after being in the heat all day there's no way I will want to cook when we get home.  Maybe another hour tonight of garden machete fun?  Have to find my bug suit.....

very busy and loving it!

The heat seems to have broken for awhile! Yesterday and today temps in the mid-upper 80's and very low humidity, so I was finally able to venture outside to survey the damage. Kind of feels like when you finally go out to assess the yard after a hurricane, although at least hurricanes are in and out of here in a matter of hours, not weeks!

Heirloom Tomato Alley was a big casualty. I picked a very bad year to try out tomatoes in containers! They were all cooked to death except the one in the pot above, and go figure, it's another UFO tomato plant! I sure wish I knew what it was, it's the healthiest tomato I have ever grown! Ripped out and trashed yesterday were the Vorlon, Black Krim, True Black Brandywine, Brandywine and Paul Robeson.

The kids' rooftop garden box is officially dead! It was way too hot up there to be in a container, too bad since there was a couple of mini pumpkins just starting too. I will rip that out tomorrow and wait a few weeks then start some Scarlet Runner Beans and see if those will work out.

The Orange Wellington hybrid tomatoes came through like a champ! There are 2 plants crammed in this hot container and they are starting to really produce like mad. I definitely understand now the reasoning for having a few hybrids around, they seem to be hardier than the heirlooms.

I built something a little crazy yesterday...

It's my UFO Tomato Super-Structure! I'm getting pretty good at this "use what you have" thing! I had tons of PVC from the huge hoophouse we tried in the winter over the whole garden. These tomatoes are massively tall, taller than any Brandywine I've ever grown, which are famous for being huge plants. I should have put a kid next to them in the picture, but they are easily 8-9 ft tall. I had to stand on a chair with a box on it to tie the top, it wasn't pretty. I called out to the kids to go tell the neighbor if I break a leg. Imagine the chair slowly sinking into the raised bed dirt as I am tying knots LOL. I'm thinking the bendy-floppy structure may be of benefit during hurricane season. Last year, I used the Florida Weave with strong line and metal fenceposts, it ended up being so rigid that the plants themselves tore at each section of line and shredded in the wind. Flexible might be better, then if the cage can completely fly off, maybe only some of the vines/stems will go but some might remain. We'll find out in Sept/Oct!

Cosmos loved the heat, I had to tear a bunch out to find my apple trees!

There's another apple tree I haven't found yet... see it? Got a machete?!

Believe it or not, in May I landscaped this back of the yard compost area. Pulled weeds, added mulch, flowers, stepping stones and coleus all along the right side. Hopefully I will get to this in the next couple of days.... it's all completely obscured now by stupid Sassafras! Trees pop up everywhere and jump to about 5 feet in a month! I also see a volunteer squash of some sort along the pavers... but I don't see my coleus, or my stack of straw, or the woodpile LOL!

Hacked back ALL the grape vines and bagged them for trash, now I can actually see my garden. They loved the heat too apparently, they had jumped out into my beds and had tendrils wrapped around tomato cages, cucumbers, even grabbed ahold of a jalapeno! I wonder how many Japanese Beetles are being cooked to death in those plastic bags (grin)!

Here's the current state of the fenced garden: the grapes are planted on left and right and far back center of the split rail fence, so removing them really opened up my garden visually. the empty space is where I have been repeatedly trying to grow lettuce, it sprouts and wilts in the heat the same day! The front left bed is cucumbers and Roma tomatoes with some random cilantro and zinnia, the back left bed is all the peppers, back right is the UFO's , chives, cilantro and dill, and front right now is only a few herbs and a teepee of Malabar Spinach

While cleaning up the brambles, I noticed these branches heavy with new blackberries! I thought they were done but I guess there's more to come.

Help me out with this watermelon! It has looked ripe for weeks now, it's getting very heavy, but there is no yellow spot underneath and is still very firmly attached to the vine - yet the overall plant is starting to die from the heat I guess... what is it like if it gets picked too early?

I started these marigolds from seed and they are fantastically HUGE! Cool foliage, too... they loved the heat apparently, since they are stuck in a small wooden box!

Mama Dove, her young'uns are foraging in the perennial beds below the deck. She always sits here and watches for the dogs. When I go towards the back door and call the dogs, she rounds up the babies under a bush. Funny thing, she doesn't move when I walk out by myself, do you think she knows the dogs names? Or maybe the sound of my voice when the dogs are called?

That's all for now, time to mow the lawn! It feels sooooo good to be outside! I kind of want to sleep outside in my kids' fort it was so nice last night LOL!

What does a gardener do when it's 108º all weekend?

1. Well I don't garden, that's for sure! I will never again complain about 1 day of hot temps... this has been going on for over a month! I've been setting my alarm for zero-dark-thirty to go outside and water. It's very eerie seeing the birds out and about in the dark and strangely absent during the day. I guess they have it figured out too. Last night it was still 92º at 11 p.m.!

2. I had the kids shuck the corn we got at the farm stand, that took all of 10 minutes... what's next? After finishing up their stellar work, I froze the corn from 2 doz ears.

While we are on that subject, it came to my attention at a BBQ last week that there are some that don't know the "bundt cake pan" corn cutting trick! After you have blanched your ears, jam the pointy end in the center hole of the bundt cake pan, then cut. The corn stands firm and your corn slides right into the cake pan. No mess, holds about a doz ears worth before you have to bag it! If you already knew this one, pass it on to someone else, I hate seeing someone struggle with sliding ears LOL!

Check out the kids' work below: anyone want corn with built-in floss? :)

3. Go grocery shopping and contemplate the waste in consumer packaging. I store stuff in those clear bins in the background so all this waste hits the floor immediately upon unpacking. This was a small trip, you should see my floor after my "every 6 weeks" trip! Hey, I didn't promise any of this stuff would be interesting!

4. Decide to do "Fall Cleaning" early this year to enable me to have it all done so I can be outside enjoying the cooler weather come fall. Result: house is messier than when I started due to all the closets being dumped out to "organize".

5. Listen to kids practice piano and vioin (eeek!). Repeatedly.

6. Clean my desk. Set up sewing machine in a permanent place so that I will be motivated to learn to sew. Uh-huh.

7. Scowl at sewing machine hourly, this will never happen.

8. Let kids watch way too much TV

9. Vow to let the kids go to the outdoor pool at the Y, but when we get there they close it due to "heat lightning", this happened both nights - kids were not happy!

10. Let myself watch cheesy horror movies and knit. That's one thing you may not know about me, I am a die hard fan of the campiest horror flicks you can find!

11. We froze the grapes from the garden, yep - that was interesting too.

These sure made a yummy snack on a hot day

12. Brought recycled cleaned empty beer bottles to a wonderful family I just met that is just learning to homebrew. We have so many extras it was nice to reclaim some space, and nice for their new owners too since they have already been de-labeled and sanitized! What's the matter, doesn't every mom's car look like this? You should hear it when we turn, clinking bottles in the back... very redneck-awesome LOL!

13. Made a batch of vanilla ice cream with easy box brownies to get the kids to eat their beans. Hint: don't actually tell them the name of bean variety you are serving or you get whines of "I don't wanna eat dragon's tongues, I want beans WITHOUT tongues in them"...

14. Contemplate ripping out the whole garden so I don't have to worry about the work anymore but a.) that would require hard work in itself and 2.)lol, it's too hot to garden and do hard work!

15. Surf the internet and see that eHow has an article on how to make a redneck flower garden. Find myself entertaining the idea for awhile...

16. Fantasize about the future where the kids are grown and hubby and I have a little cabin on a lake far north of here, where all we need is a pot of cherry tomatoes on the deck, and maybe some lettuce. (yeah right... and spinach, and potatoes, and berries, and broccoli, and a greenhouse to grow peppers and melons, and...)!

17. Make a batch of Blackberry Lemonade with our frozen berry juice!

18. I did get my fall stuff ordered, all except my garlic and onions. I have plenty of shallots to replant again , but I never seem to have the garlic left over. That is a big accomplishment, since usually I am battling the garden with a set of canning tongs and too busy to plan a proper fall garden. Instead, it looks like the fall garden will be better than summer this year.

19. Put the kids to bed, and have my own glass of Blackberry Lemonade with a little something extra, and dream of all I will accomplish tomorrow (hopefully)! We are supposed to get a huge cooldown to 89º so I am hoping it will feel Arctic to me!

Not much in the way of harvests, just a couple of tomatoes and some random overgrown cucumbers that I threw over the fence. I don't think my plants are too pleased with the weather situation either. Not very interesting, but it is what it is! I feel like I'm doing a January blog post!

So hubby, did you feel like you were right here with us? Don't worry, you aren't missing much right now except a cranky wife!

Braving It

The heat is immense, intolerable! I mowed the yard the other night and the thought occurred to me that inmates wouldn't even be subjected to working in such conditions! Today was no exception, so we waited until after dinner to venture out. I have been waiting until evening to go out and water, which I know is bad, but I just can't deal with the morning sun and humidity so thick it is foggy and swarms of mosquitoes everywhere! At 7 pm tonight I told the kids, okay - you've got 30 minutes to go out with me and play, then it's back inside to hit the showers! Heat index of 100 in the evening even has all of us on edge, I am noticing short tempers with all of us, lots of fighting between the kids, I know it's because we are trapped inside all day. Even the news has been reporting an unusually high amount of violent crime, domestics, murder-suicides, it's got to be the weather!

So here's what we accomplished/noticed in our 30-45 minutes of braving the sticky evening:

My garden seems to be growing tentacles... some random squash has sprouted from somewhere in my fence hedge bushes!

The UFO Polish Heirlooms are looking unbelievably healthy right now, the fruit on them is well over a pound and not even ripening yet! Crazy a$$ tomatoes, who wants to live in that sun and heat all day?

Close up of the monster tomatoes on the Polish

Cosmos self seeded from last year, they look so good I am thinking of planting only this next year... just open the back door and fling seed out there and call it a garden...no fuss, no watering, just heat lovin' pretty!

Other things living out in the jungle - "Hale's Best" cantelope (above) and "Bush Baby" watermelon (below)

I am really impressed with my 7 year old tonight! I had asked him to pull all the remaining Edamame plants out of the beds and we would later harvest the pods over in the shade. After about 4 minutes of this, he calls me over and thrusts a plant at me and tells me that it is covered with "root knot nematodes"! I explained to him that it was actually infected with a beneficial bacteria called "Rhizobia" and that it actually helps the plant take up more nitrogen. (This is essentially a visual cue that the soybean innoculant worked.) I think he understood and now wants to know more, but I am so impressed by his original diagnosis, and the fact that he read about nematodes on his own - he always stashes my books in his room and reads at night. Now that it's summer I let him stay in there and read until he falls asleep instead of enforcing the lights out rule! Loch, you are an amazing child! Below is the pic of the nodules he was concerned about:

"Rhizobia"

(In simple terms, inoculants are useful bacteria that infect roots, form nodules, and convert atmospheric Nitrogen into a useable form for the plant)

On to the carnage...

I ripped out all the Golden Wax and Dragon's Tongue beans tonight. They were just cooked, and starting to become a haven for bugs underneath. Ripped out all the Edamame, too. I did a second sowing about 2 weeks ago but the birds got all the sprout tops, so I will be bean-less for a bit while we sow new seeds and wait.

Unbelievable, but I had the energy to harvest and even photograph it tonight! Not much, but any more would have me freaking out, not in the mood to battle any more mosquitoes!

Fourth of July Tomatoes, Golden Wax Beans, Edamame, Cucumber, Blackberries & Raspberries

I am getting about this many berries a day now, the kids eat the raspberries right away, but every two days I have enough blackberry juice to freeze in Ball jars... when I get around to it some Blackberry Lemonade with a splash of Vodka sounds so nice! Alla y'all invited!

After sweating wearing pants and long sleeves and still getting eaten alive while watering, wouldn't you know it - just as I was getting all my crap together to head back in....THUNDER.... it's all a conspiracy ...

Dewpoint of 80! Temp 99, Feels Like....

yeah, it feels like that! Temps and humidity are matching those found in the Amazonian Rain Forest, so I've got nothing valuable to offer today. Just been surfing the net for new and exciting ways to stay cool...

Maybe I should go to the kids' swim practice tonight like this? Gotta git me one a dem Booger King crowns first!

While this blogger did this as redneck frost protection, I believe this would make the perfect solution for those days where it's just too hot to go out - open the door, throw a bucket of water out there and slam the door back shut again!

And maybe if we can't find a way to beat the heat, just grab a beer and go try to enjoy it like this lovely lady LOL!

This weather sucks, no nice way to say it. Do what I do: watch your plants die via binoculars from the window, at least you can stay cool while being stressed!