Back in the garden! Lots of photos...

First, I'll finish up the weekend...

Campsite amidst Live Oaks... my favorite tree!

The beach got too windy so we came back home and hubby decided it was time for Loch to learn how to mow the lawn...

Pretty funny stuff... don't hire him unless you just want random paths cut into the grass!

Although we are still getting nightly downpours (really strange), it has been windy enough that the garden dries out during the day and temps are very tolerable at about 80 so I headed out to check the garden.  I spent the morning today cutting blight off and tying up tomatoes that the wind and rain have been beating up.  In an attempt to spend as much time catching up out there as possible this week, this might be the only garden post I have this week, with temps forecast in the mid 70's for the next 5 days I will be taking full advantage and getting lots of work done out there (I hope)!

Here's what's going on...

Overview of the center garden, looking like a jungle -

I know I said I wasn't going to fight this again this year but...

after cutting all that away, I tied up several beds of tomatoes.

Below, heirloom "Virginia Romas" - these are the least affected by blight right now, which is interesting since this is the bed that was the most affected last year! These also aren't tied much, they seem really sturdy and upright naturally.

Below are the Brandywines, you can see how tall they are with my shoulder in the way!

Brandywines, hurry!

The pepper bed is packed closer than I've ever packed them before and they are doing really well, I think there are 22 plants in the 4x8 bed.  Peppers are easy since they don't really need staking and are pretty compact well-behaved plants :)

The bean bed is flowering now, lots of beans packed in this bed.  Yellow Wax and Green bush beans with pole beans toward the back.  You can't see it but there is a strip of lumber in there I can walk on to get to the center of the bean bed to pick the pole beans.  My bush beans are spaced about 4 inches apart in rows, I always pack these tightly too and have good success.

The grapes are "graping" :), even though I only grow them for the grape leaves for my pickle jars.  The birds enjoy the fruit.  Anyone remember when I would painstakingly tie brown paper bags over each bunch to keep the wasps and birds away?  LOL, yeah I don't fight that battle anymore.

Lots of people have asked about my Colonnade Apple trees, they put out a lot of fruit for such a small tree!

Here's one of the trees (should have pruned it, ooops!)

A lot of apples on these little trees!

Summer Squash is still well behaved -

No Squash Bugs, yet...

The side garden is out of control, I'll be in there tomorrow.  I have onions bolted and sticking me in the eyeball!  On the right are "Old Virginia" Heirlooms, since I haven't gotten to them yet they are laying all over from the wind and rain yet.

My 1st year of Hollyhock blooms!

One last thing...

What the heck is THIS?!  I haven't seen this one before in my garden, and it definitely doesn't look very helpful, so he's dead now :)  It's the size of a ladybug, actually it ended up in the pile of blight cuttings and I went to rescue it thinking it was a ladybug...not!  I wonder if there will ever be a year when I don't have to google insects...

Friday Fun with just a little soapbox...

I was a bad mom yesterday, depending on who you ask.  I decided perfect attendance in school for the year simply wouldn't live up to our high adventure standards and took the kids out of school early!  I think it's utterly ridiculous that the kids here attend school until almost the end of June and made a command decision.  Loch was a bit skeptical of my plan but I assured him he would indeed grow up to be a decent member of society if he missed a day of school in the 3rd grade.  

After picking each of them up from their schools yesterday morning, we went to one of the Naval Bases down the street for hubby's squadron's picnic.  While hubby & I did the requisite mingling and endured the ridiculous Top Gun soundtrack being played on a loop (in jest!), the kids had fun dunking each other in the dunk tank.

After a couple of hours of listening to Kenny Loggins wail about the Danger Zone (bahahahaha), we walked across the street on base to the beach and took in about an hour of that.

While there I got a Facebook alert that we were under a tornado watch... really?  Looked pretty peaceful to me, although the Blue Angels were roaring overhead and there were 25 kt winds and blowing sand, there didn't appear to be any menacing clouds at the time.

After that we went home and packed a picnic dinner and decided to go hiking at a local state park.  We figured we would be less obtrusive hiking in the dense woods instead of being lightning rods on our bicycles or out on the water.

All this beauty is only about 7 miles from our house.

Note I don't name the state park?  LOL, if you are unfamiliar with the Tidewater area and are ever visiting the area and want to know anything about the places we go, email me and I'll tell you all about it - until then I like to keep it a secret to the "outsiders" :), you know - the people that might be tempted to come here and their idea of fun is to throw their trash all over.  I say this because even in this beautiful park hubby returned loaded down with trash he picked up along the trail.  What I found interesting was lots of bags of dog-do... so people were responsible enough to pick up the dog poop, but left the bags lying there?  It was better left unbagged if that's the case...

Here are some shock and awe photos of the madness I'm talking about, and this is all the tourists usually see or even want to see:

 If you can believe it, this is our oceanfront "strip", there is no sign of the maritime forests that used to stand, and this is only 3 miles from my house, and only about 2 miles from the beauty of the park I posted above and below.  There are times when I am hiking on those trails that I just want to cry thinking about the garishness of what has replaced so much beauty.  Money, money, money.  I will say however, that the city does a fantastic job of cleaning up the sea of red Solo cups, cans and other trash at the end of every day.

Back to the finer things...

Can you believe this is the way Coastal Virginia seashores should look?  Luckily a few areas have been protected from the Miami Beach - like look of the "Hotel Strip" on the Oceanfront now.  The white open areas beyond the trees and Spanish Moss is actually open water.

Although we did see this while hiking in the salt marsh... yes, that's a helicopter landing dock!  Looks like someone has some cash burning a hole in their crab nets.

What I find interesting is that parts of our salt marshes remind me of the swamps in Minnesota!  Different vegetation and animals and brackish or saltwater instead of fresh - but the "look" is very similar.  No moose heads peeking up here though - you are looking for osprey, herons, crabs and water moccasins :)

Trail leading to one of many "Secret Spots" at the shoreline.

Hiking in the maritime forest is also good for blocking out whatever might be happening out in the rest of the world... like only about 20 miles across the water?

Indeed, NOAA wasn't lying about the tornado warnings!

We had several of these water spouts pop up all over the Chesapeake Bay after dinnertime, and were inundated with severe storms during the night.  This morning however, the temps are down to a really nice mid-70's and the humidity is down a bit.  Not sure what's in store for today yet, but it will not involve the garden until Monday at least - we have had several inches of rain in the past few days and it is gross and wet out there.  Until it dries and we can go mow the grass and dump the standing water from things I want no part of that jungle!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Sand in my teeth...

The weekend was a blur!  We stayed busy every day, but it was all fun!

Friday night we had our Cub Scout den over with their families for dinner (cooked by the scouts) and a marshmallow roast.

They grilled the hot dogs :)

After dinner they practiced erecting a tent and some fun with slingshots

Saturday morning we drove up to our capitol city of Richmond, about 2 hours away to bid farewell to a friend who is "stationed" there as a Mormon missionary (can you tell I'm a military wife?)  Two years on his own dime and only 4 phone calls home, that takes a lot of dedication for someone his age.

We loaded up at Whole Foods (we don't have that either down here!) and had a picnic lunch at a park overlooking the city, what a great view!  The next day he would be off on a flight back home to Washington state to get back to family, friends, college, dirt bikes and whatever fun the summer will bring.  I wonder if he will miss the past 2 years of Virginia heat and humidity?  Yeah, probably not :)

Of course we had to make a pit stop at "Disneyland"...er, R.E.I.!

The closest R.E.I. is this one at 2 hours away, but we were a little disappointed, it was more like the "convenience store" of REI's... next time we will just wait to go to the bigger one back home in Minnesota near my parents' house.  

We were home in time that evening for hubby to get out on the water for a few minutes and then tacos at a local taco shop on the beach.

We dropped off Loch at a friend's house for a sleepover and then it was just Finn with us for the night.  Here's Finn learning the in's and out's of rooftop paddle board hauling-

and enjoying a root beer and taco night with us, dinner out was cheaper minus Loch that night :)

Fish tacos

yummy Carne Asada tacos

Next day was more beach (the Chesapeake Bay) and paddle boarding...

Loch is growing up so fast...

Monday was yet more beach, the ocean this time...

Finn's wipeout:

He was doing pretty well for awhile but the surf was getting really strong with the tropical storm moving up the coast, I pulled him out right after this.  He's a decent swimmer after all these years of lessons, but rip tides don't discriminate.

We ended the weekend with a cookout at a friend's house, a car that looked like a sand dune, showers at home that looked like those at a campground and two really tired little boys!

Finn's tip for the next big weekend:

"Remember, SAFETY FIRST"!

Did I mention it was 90º and 82% humidity all weekend?  Yuck.  Now it just started pouring a few minutes ago and we are supposed to start seeing the rain bands of Tropical Storm Beryl start arriving tonight, we are expected to get from 6-8 inches of rain over the next 2 days.  I can't believe how early this hurricane season started.  The official start date is June but we never really see storms until August, this is going to be a wild year.

I have a feeling that we will be doing more fun things this summer and possibly leaving the garden to look a bit more unruly than usual summers.  It looks like hubby will be deploying to the Middle East again in February, so instead of fighting the insects and weather of 2012, we may just try to enjoy family & friends as much as we can this summer.  

Mother Nature... Putting the "Early" in Early Blight

Do you see what I see?

How 'bout now?

Another bed looks okay, right?

Here's the backside:

On the other side of the yard we have wind damage

Please hurry, you might be the only tomatoes this year for me...

This is shaping up to be an awful year weather wise, and I guess I knew the effects would show in the garden, but I still had high hopes.  Don't we always?  Gardening in the south is not for the faint of heart.  We have had thunderstorms for close to 14 straight days now, and then comes the heat just to make double sure the insects and diseases are kept warm, wet and happy. UGH!!!!  There will be no treatment this year, I've tried them all and have the empty bank account to prove it.  Nothing truly works for blight and I could have spent all that money I spent on ridiculous treatments and put it towards finding the nearest farmer selling tomatoes by the bushel.  Hang on, I need a scream moment...  At least last year the blight came at a normal blight-ish time of year and I was actually able to put away quite a bit before the bitter end.

At least some things do spectacularly well here...the honeybees, bumbles and hummingbirds are going wild for the Butterfly Weed, Sage and Verbena that are in full bloom.

Maybe I'll take next year off to solarize the beds and just do beekeeping...

Yes, you heard right... beekeeping, yay!  Lochlann is the newest member of the 4-H Jr. Beekeepers Club!  His bee suit is on the way and he will be working in the 4-H Bee Yard progressing towards earning his own hive.  Of course we will all be joining the Beekeeper's Association and getting in on the fun.  I tried to end on a good note, did it work or are you scrolling back up to the top and getting sick to your stomach?  :)  Chin up, gardeners... it can't be this bad everywhere, right?

Oh surprise, surprise... it's thundering again.

Father/Son Campout

It has been raining, thunder storming and high winds for over a week now, so nothing much to report on the garden. Too squishy out there to do much, and I'm sure the tomatoes are now freely spreading on the ground since there has been so much wind I'm sure they are no longer secured to their trellis system.

I know we need the rain, but it's putting a damper on a lot of my plans.  I've had a "Mother's Day Marshmallow Roast" planned for my Cub Scouts for over 2 weeks now and we have to keep canceling due to the weather.  

The weather didn't stop our church's Father/Son Campout, however!  Although there were high winds, the rain stayed away for them.  They went up to the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  For those unfamiliar, it's a trip across the 13 mile engineering wonder of the world Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel  :)  It's actually only a 30 minute or so trip to the other side but it's like another world over there, very rural, seaside agriculture and fishing and not too much else.  Some may only know of the area as the spit of land where the Chincoteague Ponies swim, but that's the general geographical area.

I had to entrust the photography to hubby and sent him off with my camera with instructions to "make sure you don't just take pictures of crap, make sure there are people's faces in them!!"  Well, he gave the camera to Loch for the weekend, so we get what we get and we don't throw a fit, right?

Dads setting up tents 

One of the boys' friends, (and one of my Cub Scouts) hamming it up...

Whittling... this is why I made sure I threw a first aid kit in the car LOL

My child sent into what was probably a Water Moccasin infested field... this wouldn't happen if moms were there, ha!

Oh great, a snake hunt?  One of the dads said after returning from the trip that they were sent to look for the elusive Wheat Cobra, LOL!  But hey, I'm still stuck on the whole real, native snakes we have...yikes!

Finn surveying 

Love the bullhorn... this is on my wish list!

Lots of dads, lots of sons...

Campfire shot, I think Loch took this one

Finnegan

Breakfast time!

I love these tired morning faces! (also my Cub Scouts!)

How did this one get in here?  LOL, was too cute not to post, this is the latest instrument to take up residence in my house.  Finn is dreaming of South Pacific seas...

What was I doing all this time?  I had dreams of reading a book, gardening, etc but after getting all their stuff packed for them and sending them off, I found myself stricken by creativity and made this little cake-pop garden for one of the gals at church that needed sweets for a teen dance.  It was so fun making them but it takes so long!  After that I was so tired I just watched a chick flick LOL.

More thunderstorms today... my poor garden, I haven't been out there in a week!