Random Stuff

I woke up this morning to NO WATER!  That is one thing that will send me over the edge.  Hubby looked at the well pump and he thinks the motor is toast, so it looks like we'll be out until the pump guy can come later today, and hopefully he'll have what he needs to get us up and running again.  This happening in the country with a hand pump I'd be able to deal with, but these suburban shallow wells are usually located under the crawl space of the house with no hand pump and no way of manually getting water.  Over the years I have figured out what my limits are - I could get by with no electricity as long as I didn't live where it's hot, but  I MUST have running water, I don't think there is any negotiation on this one!  

With no water I can't can my tomatoes or get any kitchen related chores done, so I figure I'd take the opportunity to post some of the random photos that were on my computer desktop, completely unrelated stuff that I was saving to try and integrate into a relevant post, but who am I kidding?  Everything is random some days :)

Ever wanted to know what a cotton plant looks like?  I grow them to show the kids in the 'Ready-Set-Grow' program in the schools every spring.  Most kids have no clue that their clothes came from the dried stick of fluff I pass around :)

Cotton plant flower - the white flowers turn pink after a couple of days which is what you see above.  It is a relative of the Mallow plant, you may notice the resemblance of the blooms and leaves.

From CurlBros. CottonInfo: "Each flower falls after only 3 days leaving behind a small seed pot, known as the boll. Children in cotton-growing areas in the South sometimes sing this song about the flowers:

First day white, next day red,
third day from my birth - I'm dead.

Each boll contains about 30 seeds, and up to 500 000 fibres of cotton. Each fibre grows its full length in 3 weeks and for the following 4-7 weeks each fiber gets thicker as layers of cellulose build up the cell walls. While this is happening the boll matures and in about 10 weeks after flowering it splits open. The raw cotton fibres burst out to dry in the sun. As they lose water and die, each fibre collapses into what looks like a twisted ribbon. Now is time for harvesting. Most cotton is hand-picked. This is the best method of obtaining fully grown cotton because unwanted material, called "trash", like leaves and the remains of the boll are left behind. Also the cotton that is too young to harvest is left for a second and third picking. A crop can be picked over a period of two months as the bolls ripen."  If you are interested in more info, this link covers the basics.  

Yesterday harvested more tomatoes & eggplant

If you are looking for a game that both kids and adults will enjoy, I highly recommend this one, "Camp".  The questions are all educational about plants, animals, geology, "outdoor stuff", and have different levels so it remains interesting for everyone.  For instance, Finn will take Level 1, Loch Level 2, and hubby and I will take Level 4 questions if we are feeling particularly knowledgeable LOL.  Beats the heck out of CandyLand anyways!

Some of you "far North-ers" might want to know exactly what that darn Squash Vine Borer (SVB) looks like:

When you see the frass, dig into the stem of the squash vine, and you are likely to find the culprit, the larvae of the Squash Vine Borer moth, pale with a brown head.  They normally lay the eggs at the base of the squash vine where they hatch, burrow into the plant and commence mass destruction.  So now you know :)

Found a new way to keep kids occupied while I'm canning - clipping coupons!  Now I'm not really a fan of coupons mostly because they are all for highly processed junk that we don't eat anyways, and although I watch "Extreme Couponers" on TLC with fascination, it's usually with mouth agape from shock LOL.  Coupon cutting, however, seems to be extremely exciting for kids, they stayed busy for over an hour!  They asked which ones to cut, and I said ALL of them - bad mommy, maybe, but it was an hour of peace and quiet!

The weather has been just ridiculous, the thunderstorms have been continual for several days now, no sun, and temps in the upper 90's.  Mosquitoes are terrible, and I think the garden is going to be showing signs of problems soon from it.  We have sand for soil so it drains well, but the constant wind, wet leaves and heat is going to be bad.  The plants never have time to dry off since the storms are coming several times a day.

I'm itchy just thinking about going out there to harvest today!

Warning: Explicit Photo!

I know, I know... it's a little early in the morning to be subjected to this...

Ribbit, can I join your club?

Of Bugs & Blight

I think I have recovered enough that I can talk about my issues with Early Blight.  Yesterday was treatment day, I trimmed and sprayed, trimmed and sprayed, until...

there was barely anything left!

Above, the Roma tomato bed was the worst.  I pulled 2 plants from the right side completely and had to prune radically.

Below, the Red Zebra tomatoes.  I purposefully pruned these up like a tree early on, but only the one on the right had blight symptoms, and now looks pretty pathetic!  I know the plant doesn't have enough foliage to survive now, but am hoping for the fruit to ripen before I pull it completely.

The Yellow Pear tomatoes were a total loss and were pulled.  I was able to save a few ripe ones, but sadly it was toast.  

The frustrating thing is that I anticipate this stuff from the get-go, I always prune up so there is light and air circulation underneath, only water from the bottom, etc.  We did have an unusually cool, wet month of May when they were set out.  I also noted that I had the same problem only with these varieties last year, and used the same seed packs... I'll be throwing them out pronto.

Now, some good news!  My other tomatoes seem unaffected by anything other than heavy loads.

Heirloom Brandywines & Hillbillies

Hybrid Orange Wellington is a good producer in containers, these were in containers last year too, and withstood being knocked over countless times in storms.

Today, we were kicked in the gut again... Squash Vine Borers!  

Above is one of the Sugar Pie pumpkins.  I had never seen a SVB moth in real life before but when it landed I did a double take, immediately recognized it from Loch's bug briefings and started hollering at hubby to come over and help.  I happened to have a bottle of Neem Oil insecticidal soap spray in my tool caddy and nailed it repeatedly - it then basically gave me the finger and flew off.  I ran inside and looked up exactly what the eggs looked like so I could get them before they hatched and burrowed in, and ran back outside.  After briefing hubby we went to start searching all the bases of all the squash plants.  While peering in there it landed again right in front of us.  Chaos ensued, me spraying Neem at it like G.I. Jane unloading a machine gun, hubby chasing it with a fly swatter, and the dogs in the house barking trying to figure out why we seem to have had gone off the deep end.  Anyway, we didn't get it and now I'm freaked out and keep going out there to look for eggs, I'm thinking about sitting on the deck with binoculars and lying in wait!  I know it's going to be bad because it's not even a race to get the squash before the SVB damage kicks in - they haven't even bloomed yet!  I'll have to be more careful with my machine gun spray once they bloom, I surely don't want to hit any bees!

I'll finish with some good things...

It was 79ºtoday, only 42% humidity, and it just doesn't get any cooler than that around here, thank you, Mother Nature!

Got the deck cleaned up and rearranged...

and shocked my fish by cleaning the pond!

Thanks to all of you for your helpfulness on the zucchini planting, I'll be doing that tomorrow.  We are expected to remain below 82 degrees until Friday, when the heat gets kicked back up again.