Wacky weather... and a video for meemsnyc!

I know I'm not the only one... what is UP with the rain?  For once I am thankful that our soil here is sand, since it drains right away, but all the tidal waters here (it's ALL tidal here) are rising and I'm sure the people with waterfront property are probably not liking this at all.

The below photo was snagged off Facebook, but it was taken locally this afternoon...

The past 10 days that's what we've had, rain and overcast interrupted by beautiful sun for an hour or two here and there, very strange, it's been going on for so long.

Here's a photo from this morning in my yard, sun is shining, but it's raining!

I took the opportunity to get out and tie up my tomatoes, they are getting big with all this rain.

This is the main tomato garden this year, all the large ones were planted here in beds, boxes, and in ground.  That pile in the middle was everything pruned off the tomatoes today.

Below is another shot after they were all tied up and the lower branches trimmed so they wouldn't touch the soil.  These are Pink Brandywine, Hillbilly and Red Zebra.

In the center garden (the fenced in garden) I have one bed of Amish Paste that also needed trimming and tying.  All the varieties now have little green tomatoes on them except the Yellow Pear in the big tomato garden, but they are blossoming finally.

Another rainstorm arrived just as I finished, so I spent the next few hours organizing my craft and sewing stuff and rearranging furniture LOL.  I got all my thread organized with the labels facing the same direction... just sayin'....   :)

Kids got home from school and I had a Eureka!  moment...  I've finally found something healthy that they love - they immediately asked for pita chips and hummus as an afterschool snack.  I am making big batches of hummus every week now, with hubby working nights he can always grab that and some pitas if there are no leftovers from dinner :)

Stopped raining for a bit so I headed back out and saw this... yikes - my potatoes are flowering already!

...went to go check on my peppers and found a blossom, but they are getting tall trying to search for sunlight in the shade of the peas... I might have taken my intensive planting a bit too far this time.

You can't see them, but they're in there!

I picked peas last NIGHT for goodness' sake!  I was hoping for an "every other day" picking cycle, but apparently the peas have other ideas.  I'm thankful they are so productive, but I'm getting pretty anxious for them to be done, so I can get the sun back on those peppers an plant something else there, too.

No time to pick tonight, thunder and lightning this time...

Sorry, lots of photos here today, but I plan to take the day off blogging tomorrow, it's supposed to rain and I promised Loch and Finn I would make them Hawaiian Shirts for, you guessed it - "Hawaiian Shirt Day" at school.  I have until the evening of the 22nd to finish them, I'm pretty sure they will be horrible since sleeves scare the cr@p outta me.

One more thing, a Hops video for meems @ Gardening in the Boroughs of NYC, she had asked about how we grow our hops:

First Spring Harvest

And it's......STRAWBERRIES, LOL!  I just went outside to "walk the estate" and assess the damage from last night's severe weather and I found the first 2 ripe strawberries, which will actually be the 2nd harvest of the year since I am going to count the 2 leeks I pulled in March that wintered over.  We promptly took a picture and they went down the hatch.  Finn said "Mommy, they taste like the ones we picked at the farm", to which I explained to him "no, they're better because WE grew them" :)   

    

Also a pic of the peas, which just the past week are going like gangbusters now.  Can't wait, but they never seem to make it to the freezer for stash!  I am going to remember to do fall peas this year so we have some for winter.

On the weather note, our area had the works last night:  severe thunderstorms, wind, downpours, tornado warnings - I was terrified for my seedlings, but amazingly there was no damage.  I hope the same for those of you who went through it.  I thank the raised beds and the fact some other seedlings were planted in my heavily mulched borders.  I think if they had been planted in the unmulched ground they would surely have washed away.  It's amazing how I took the safety of the basement for granted in the Midwest.  When that kind of weather happens here, we have limited options to take cover.  

I now live in the land of sand, swamps, high water tables and NO basements!  That is definitely on my list of future-house needs: a basement for severe weather/canning storage/squirrel attacks, and my own version of a harvest kitchen with a huge walk in pantry and a mudroom!   Hmmm, my mom has all that at the house I couldn't wait to leave to go "see the world"...well, Mom - I've seen it and I want back in...can the kids come, too?!!!

*An update to my fruit leather attempt:

While delicious...this is the amount that resulted from having my countertop oven running for 4 hours!  This will be devoured in one kid-snack sitdown!  Bottom line:  Yummy, but this is definitely not homesteading/being green or cheap!  I think to do this without wasting time and money it needs to be done the old-fashioned way with screens in the sun.  The yield would have been much greater with no energy wasted, but with our humidity here my options are limited.  I did, however, use my 6 jars of too-runny jam to redo the experiment in my food dehydrator.  I lined the trays with parchment paper and it held all 6 jars at once and turned it on at 10 p.m. and it was done this morning at 7.  Greater yield, less energy wasted, so a compromise has been found!

You can tell by my frequent postings that it has been raining all day so I can't get outside, my house is already clean, and I am minus one child today :)  This doesn't happen too often!