Garden of Life....And Death!

Last night I waited until temps dropped to 90, lol...and headed out to harvest and do some chores. The bounty was huge and every bit of it went in to work with my next door neighbor! Without hubby home to help eat eggplant, there wasn't much I could do with it, and the jalapenos and tomato processing this week would have surely turned me against gardening forever! This week has been tough, the temps alone I may be able to handle but the humidity outside has had me in a funk all week, and the next 7 days looks to be more of the same. I noticed the other day that it was so thick and hazy I had trouble making out the tomato beds at the other end of the yard! Selling at the Farmer's Market is not an option this week either, since I would have to tow the kids along and selling out of the back of the car with 2 whiny kids and 100 degree temps doesn't sound like "making good choices" to me, lol! Last night alone netted 3 lbs cherry tomatoes, 3.1 lbs jalapenos, 7 lbs eggplant, 13 oz bell peppers, 4 lbs cucumbers, & 9 lbs Heirloom tomatoes. Hopefully my neighbors' co-workers will appreciate them more than I can this week!

What did pick up my spirits a bit was the Edamame bed. Note to self: grow more of this! These plants are ready to be harvested this week and are the most well behaved little garden dwellers I have ever seen! They stay in their boundaries, can be crammed into a bed and produce tons of yummy pods per plant.

Below is a close-up of the 'Beer Friend' Edamame:

Other than the harvest, I finally got around to pulling out the dead sunflowers. They are getting a new life in my "lazy girl's birdfeeder", lol!

This evening's death and destruction took the form of bacterial wilt in my squash bed! You may remember how gorgeous the bed looked a few weeks ago...well, tonight they looked horrid and along with that were covered in cucumber beetle eggs, and they had jumped the bed and taken over my berry patch as well. I ripped out the lot of them and packed it all in the trash can. Now I have an empty bed, which I admit is exciting stuff.

Here are the 3 Hokkaido Squash that were in the bed, immature but pretty nonetheless. I was really looking forward to this since I have never grown squash and am not a big fan, but so many people rave about it that this was going to be THE YEAR I was going to choose, grow, and learn to love it! I will still try some, but will have to get it at the Farmer's Market. I ripped out the cukes from that bed too since the bugs were moving in and I already have plenty of pickles put away. I have one lone cuke vine over on my fence that will give me just enough for salads.

Now I need to research what I can put in that bed that won't be susceptible to the wilt virus that's in the soil. I will definitely grow squash again but now that I know how many bugs, etc enjoy it and how invasive it is I will plant it near the fence away from my raised beds where I can control it more effectively. The best lessons learned are from experience, right??

This made the sweaty mosquito-ridden evening bearable. Fresh picked Edamame pods cooked and chilled and sprinkled with Kosher salt and a glass of homebrew. Delicious! Now I know what I can do at night when the kids are in bed this winter instead of eating Cheese Nips and other garbage for snacking! I will be eating and freezing as much as possible and am even planting a second bed full tomorrow! Go SOYBEANS! Nature's perfect snack!

As an afterthought: I decided to add a counter to see just how much produce we are harvesting and NOT using for future planning purposes! Not that I don't love to be able to give away veggies, but it's something that would seem valuable to know!

Well, it's about TIME!

My first decent harvest of heirloom tomatoes! Of course it happens now, when I have no interest in being outside due to the heat indexes in the 100's and high humidity. Couple that with the fact that hubby is gone and I now have lawn mowing to contend with as well. Go figure! Looks like canning season has arrived:

This Brandywine weighed in at over 1 lb!

Finnegan making tomato & basil sauce

That's all for today, I just finished mowing the lawn and am covered in grass, dirt, sweat, and mosquito bites. Time to hit the shower, put kiddos to bed, and veg out for a few hours. Looks to be about 30 eggplant to deal with tomorrow, they will have to go to the farmer's market since I am tired of them and they are pretty much impossible to preserve! Good night all.

Garden Bloggers' Death Day

So I thought I would finally join the Death Day craze! Below I have a Weeping Redbud Tree...note the crispy leaves at the bottom I just trimmed off. Now I am the one weeping! There is still green wood so I am keeping my fingers crossed, although what tree wants to recover in 95 degree heat & humidity in a container????
This is what it looked like a month ago... :(

The Dog Days of Summer!

I was trying to organize old photos on the computer this morning, and was inspired to dedicate today's post to my Garden Dogs! If you are the type that can't stand it when others go on and on about their pets or kids, this post isn't for you, lol! If you can take it, read on! I received several comments on how well behaved my dogs looked in my camping trip pictures, and that made me laugh! So here's the real deal...

I followed a water trail through the house last night that led to a bucket filled with sanitizer for my brewing equipment. This is what I found:

The next one is when I arrived home and found Sprocket repotting my plants for me:

Bios:

Marley - age 7, Australian Shepherd, came to us last summer and she is a joy! Well behaved and obedient off leash unless there is a garden hose spraying, loves H2O, squirrels, herding & her family. She is also becoming quite the disc dog! Dislikes: thunderstorms, Sailor/Husband's sneezes, campfires and fireworks. Fun Facts: Marley was afraid of stairs when we got her, and within a day was climbing to the top of the kids fort, and can fly over a 6 foot fence from a sitting postion! Her name was Charley when we got her, but was changed to Marley since my husband Charlie used it as an excuse to not listen to me, i.e. "Oh, I thought you were talking to the dog".

Sprocket - age 1, came to us at 10 weeks old from Aussie Rescue. She is hell on paws. Likes: eating Legos, Lincoln Logs, remotes, digging in the sandbox, catching vermin, and waiting for ice to come out of refrigerator door dispenser.

Dislikes: I haven't found any yet! Her favorite toys are a wing from a stuffed loon and a stuffed sheep, and loves Marley more than life itself.

Fun Fact: Sprocket can't keep a secret - if she has some kind of contraband in her mouth, she runs around growling so we all know she is being naughty! Neurotic Dogs rock!

The day we brought Sprocket home from the Aussie Rescue. Marley is thinking "What the hell is this??? I said I wanted SHEEP, not this thing!!!"

Marley soon shone in new role as mommy and mentor, the two are inseparable, literally!

Marley taking a break from garden duties to become "canoe dog".

Marley showing Sprocket how to be a proper herding dog!

And speaking of herding dogs...can you think of anything more neurotic than 4 herding dogs over Christmas Break and no sheep????

This video captures Marley's OCD passion for water:

Marley after chewing off another hose nozzle and telling it who's boss.

The following two videos are of Bailey the Cattle Dog and her TV obsession. I pet-sit her and her Aussie "brother". If these 2 ever go missing, it's probably because I kidnapped them - I love them that much, lol! She will "ask" for the TV to be turned on even...funny stuff!

And no proper tribute to pets in this house would be complete without the Incredible Mr. Pickett. Kelly mentioned that one of her dogs set the standard for all her other pets - Pickett is the one who set the bar in this household! He showed up one day in 1999 with a portion of picket fence attached to a heavy chain hanging from his neck. He never left. I heard through the neighborhood grapevine that he lived at a crack house and was chained to a tree every day in all kinds of weather, no dog house, no water, and had been seen dumpster diving for at least 2 weeks. After 3 days of baths and removing over 100 ticks, treating him for heartworm disease, erlichia, and a few other ailments, we had The Pickster! He was a little over a year old, was obviously primarily a Bernese Mountain Dog, a breed who needs and craves human attention the way a fish needs water. We worried when we brought home baby #1 - Pickett was beside himself with joy! Baby #2: thought he had died and gone to heaven! He let the kids climb on him, throw toys at him (but that wasn't encouraged!), and was underfoot so much you always felt like you had legwarmers on. I miss him next to our backyard firepit in the evening (Marley is terrified and won't come near!). Whatever was going on, Pickett was going to be in the middle of it all! He was the type of dog who loved us fiercely and showed his gratitude in his eyes all the time. Berners' life expectancy is short, 6-8 years, but Pickett kept rockin' until he was 9! He died last year and set the bar high indeed for all future pets! I will stop rambling now, you can tell how much we loved him! And here he is!!

Note to Self : Buy more gloves!

I spent the day canning pickled jalapenos. I set out all my stuff and started scorching my pepper skins and realized I only have one glove left! Like a dummy I continued with only one glove for 4 lbs of jalapenos. This is by far the most labor intensive preserving that I do, and it is also the last batch I will do this year! The rest will have to be frozen or flung at passing cars. I can't even feel the keyboard my hands are burning so bad, 4 hours after finishing! Maybe I should have re-read my lessons learned post last month, lol! Oh well, it's done now, and I finally have enough to last for a winter of nachos at night after the kids go to bed. I let about half go to red and half green just for variety:

While watering this morning, I spotted several Black Swallowtail Caterpillars happily munching away on parsley and dill in the garden. No problems here, I plant oodles of these plus fennel and milkweed especially for them!

I had 100 bottles of beer on the wall...literally - last night! The brew wasn't quite ready to be bottled when Sailor/Husband left Sunday, so I had to do this myself. This is definitely a 2-person job, but then again, so is raising kids, lol..."Honey, where aaaarrrreeee yoooouuuuu???" When I was almost finished, I put the kids to work wrapping things up while I enjoyed a Belgian Ale from the last batch. Is this even legal, lol ???

I am hoping to post a little more frequently these days. It seems whenever Charlie's away, I get more done (no offense, dear!)! The kids and I get into a groove and I'm not busy trying to fill our days with plans just because "he's leaving again soon". Yesterday, I even got my desk cleaned up. I am usually meticulous with organization, etc. but lately I have been joking that my desk was "our mudroom"! I have had a piece of paper tacked to my fridge keeping track of my harvest and even finally got around to putting up a "harvest counter" on the blog! I see many of you have them and it seems like a great idea to have a constant reminder of my progress in the sustainability dept. Also on the "to do" list - a homebrew status for Sailor/Husband/Farmer: check! Soon I am hoping to get my slideshows to look a little better on the page. I haven't really had time to mess with that since the day I put them up. Seems I am finding all sorts of ways to avoid going outside in the garden, as this week we are actually having "normal" temps of 90+ and humidity.

I'll take the MN summer we have been having any day, I just want to know ahead of time so I can more appropriately select & date my plantings!

and the winner is....

The honors for the first edible heirloom tomato out of my garden goes to:

The Black Krim!

It was small...but tasty! I have a Brandywine picked also that I will try this evening. Hopefully this weeks rains won't crack all the rest out there ripening!

Leaf Footed Bug

The leaf footed bugs have set up housekeeping in my jalapenos! They love tomatoes, peppers and some fruits. They were the only pest I had last year, but didn't show up until September. Is this a sign of a strange fall/winter to come? My jalapenos are covered with the larve & adults, busily sucking at the plants.

Adult Leaf - Footed Bug

Larvae - look like red ants but huge and bright

This won't work for me this year since my sunflowers are all done, but here's a tip that worked like a charm last year, lol!

Plant a stand of Mammoth Sunflowers (need to be huge and visible!) across the yard from your tomatoes & peppers. When leaf-footed bugs show up, hit them with a spray of H20 from hose and they will all fly up and seek the sunflowers for refuge (they like those, too!). Then, when sunflower faces are covered with Leaf Bugs, hit them with Sevin or something like that. Yes, it's strong stuff, but it works and at least you aren't spraying the tomatoes or other veggies with it! Hmmm, wish I would have planted those sunflowers again this year...