June Gardening

So now that hubby is gone, I can shake myself off and start again! Thanks to all your kind words and a "me night" last night, today was a better day. Last night I vegged out in front of the TV, painted my toenails, gave myself the "gardeners manicure" (short cut, dig out dirt, sugar scrub, cornhuskers lotion, lol!), had a glass of wine and enjoyed the quiet after the kids went to bed. Today I didn't do much outside since it was hot as hell and humid, but I got my kitchen organized, which I had been putting off since it has been nice out up until now. The past week and last weekend were very busy, however, and we got alot done although much of it was overdue chores and general cleanup. I ripped out the peas the other day and am so in love with the empty clean raised bed that I haven't put my edamame in there yet! This weekend I will do that.

One beautiful not-overgrown raised bed in the foreground...Enjoy while you can!

Shallots are like a toaster when they are done! I will pull them this evening...

Here's a pic of the purple grapes which due to the birds, I am sure that I will not get to see turn purple...

And, as promised...the torched Rose Finn Fingerling Potatoes... oh, yes - this was an "accident"! Sailor/Husband thought he would help me weed by using his flame thrower around the cages FILLED WITH STRAW!!!!! I may have to send him to some kind of basic training for gardeners, right after he finishes fire safety class...! I will let them be and have camera in hand when I try and harvest. Who knew you could grow BAKED Potatoes??? This is one of those things that definitely was not funny when it happened, but thinking about his face when I saw what he had done makes me chuckle now - he was a'scared of me that night.

Here's the gates hubby finally finished. Yay! There's another set just like it on the other side of the house. He built a big overhang so I can grow hops or some other vine up and over it. Kinda reminds me of "Southfork"! Ooops, there I go showing my age again...

And here is the border I finally finished along the fenceline. I planted some evergreen Clematis that should provide complete coverage/privacy by next year. This time I was smart and used landscape fabric instead of just cardboard. The BermudaGrass here is awful and will grow through almost anything.

So now I am going to get those kids in bed. I am going to go out to the garden armed with a glass of wine and bug spray and pull those shallots...

Bad Mommy!

Let me first say to my husband if he is reading this while out on the High Seas, "I'm sorry" and "Thank you for busting your ass working here at home before you left!"...don't think I didn't notice and appreciate it!

My military spouse peeps out there I hope can identify with some of what I am going through right now, and if you can't, well, sorry I am about to bore you to tears with my complaining! Sailor/Farmer left Tuesday for several weeks again. I don't know what I was thinking by planting such a big garden and taking on so many projects! I don't know where I thought I would get the time for it. Once again, deployment is looming near and I seemed to have been in denial about it.

Now, looking at the calendar, I realize that he will be home a total of only about 6-8 weeks this summer/fall, mostly in 2 week spurts before he leaves for the real deployment in November. So now that I am faced with enough produce for a family of 50 (no kidding!), I am once again cursing myself for falling for the "denial stage" yet again. My husband had to work on our fence/gates all weekend just to finish them before he left, so the kids didn't get any "dad time" before he left. I even let a bad one slip, it went something like "if you want a home to come back to, you will finish these - TONIGHT"! Yeah, ooops... This is something he is quite used to in the weeks/months leading up to deployment, and then again at his return, and you would think that after all these years & deployments we would be able to deal with this better, but nope! In my defense, at the time I made my comment, he had just finished setting my potato cages on fire so I was a little tweaked already! (Yeah, he did it by accident, more on that fiasco in my next garden update!) Since he left on Tuesday, I have sunk to bad mommy levels not seen around here in awhile...the past 3 days dinner consisted of McDonald's, Pizza Rolls, and tonight - frozen pizza! I had every intention of cooking dinner this evening, but just finished mowing the lawn in heat & humidity and after cleaning up dog puke, Legos, and wet swimsuits from the floor, I am done! I even yelled at one of my kids today before he could get anything out past "Mommy....." Ugh!

See, all is not always perfect in the real world or in blog world! Too many times we only write about the good things, but my aim is to write about what it is like trying to live a "normal" life in a military world...and sometimes 'dem twos don't mix! I owe the inspiration to my "Honest Mommy" post to The Mrs. over at "Trying Our Best"...thanks, and I hope that now some of that is off my chest I can move on to other things, maybe like figuring out when the local Food Bank holds donation days for produce, LOL!

I'm Gonna Hurt Somebody....!

Ok, don't laugh, but... does anyone know how to get rid of Bermudagrass creeping all over my beds?  Ugh!  I prepped the beds with about 4 layers of cardboard, then about 3 inches of mulch.  Now, can't even see the mulch through the damn weeds!  I thought of using Roundup even, but the stuff is too close to my veggies and plants.  Anyone tried vinegar?  I torched the ones furthest from the veggies with the "flame-thrower", and am now hand pulling them.  It's 90 degrees, I'm on my third change of sweat soaked clothes, holes in 2 pairs of gardening gloves, and trying to entertain a 4 year old.  You get the picture!  I am ready to throw in the towel, or pruners, as it may be!  So sorry to be bitchy and vent, but if anyone would understand, it's you lovely readers...  maybe it's because I am coming off a rough weekend...maybe it really is the Bermudagrass, LOL!  I hope to post updates of the weekend this evening, after the weather (and I) cool off a bit  :)

The Garden is finally appearing on the dinner menu!

Although too early for my own peppers or tomatoes, I challenged myself to include produce from our garden in every dish this evening, and this is what transpired:

I had mesclun, lettuce, salsa and peas for the salad, made pesto from our basil for the tortellini, and herbs for the "herb paste" on the grilled tuna, and parsley for a garnish!  Now, if I could just replace those store bought cardboard tomatoes for the real thing....

Men, Fish and Beer...

We were able to bottle the homebrew on Friday evening!  The kids find this whole project fascinating, and I realized that my boys are going to show up freshman year at college already knowing how to brew their own micro's....ooops!  I must admit it is alot of fun and actually is quite fascinating!  Now the freshly capped bottles have to age for about 4-6 weeks, which means I will get the first taste since Charlie will be out on the ship again next week for awhile!

The Chief Bottle Washer

Capping the bottles

This weekend we sort of played hooky from the garden duties.  I was looking at the calendar last week and noticed that even though Sailor/Husband/Father/Farmer doesn't go on deployment until this fall, he only has a total of 6 weeks home with us this summer since they are gone on "workups" (training) so often.  So, I figured the chores like building fence gates will still be there next week and we needed to just make a priority out of spending some time together doing things the kids enjoy.  We decided to take the kids fishing out in Back Bay and ended up eating at one of our favorite restaurants out there, the Blue Pete.  Next weekend I think we will go back out and take the canoe this time a little earlier in the day so the kids can have some better luck with the fish.

Fishing with Dad

Feeding the fish at Blue Pete's

Strawberry Shortcake with local berries, yum!

Other notable weekend happenings around the homestead:  

Pumpkin sprouting...this was neat since the seed case was still attached and the kids can better visualize what's happening!

One of our juvenile doves waiting patiently for mom to come back and feed her!

I am really hoping to get plenty of chores done during the weekdays this week so we can have a little fun again this weekend!  Now I am off to order more beans - this was the first time I planted them outside the raised beds and critters helped themselves to about half of the sprouts!

Don't forget the pumpkins, Mom!

It's a good thing I have kids, or nothing would get planted around here!  Yesterday, my son was perusing (ok, destroying) my new "Garden Manual" and he came across seed packets for pumpkins and wanted to know when they go into the ground.  "Well, I guess if we want pumpkins for Halloween we better get started!"  So it was off to start more seedlings even though truth be told, after the tomatoes and peppers, I don't want to see another seed flat for a good long while!  We planted a few of the classic orange jack-o-lanterns, a few white "Casper" pumpkins, birdhouse gourds, cucumbers and some flower seed.  If you ask Finn he will tell you "We planted pickles and birdhouses!"  Still no idea where the pumpkins will go.  I will probably plant them along the fence bed and just keep kicking the vines out of the yard each time I mow!

Aren't these seeds cute?  

And what the hay is this???  Where do I get to sit???  Apparently the term "Garden Dogs" was lost on them on the way to the living room.

We will be bottling our first batch of homebrew this weekend, and I spent 2 hours last night in front of the TV scraping labels off recycled beer bottles, scrubbing and sanitizing.  Hope Sailor/Farmer appreciates it.  No doubt he will actually notice my efforts this time, since it involves beer :)

Little Bit of This, Little Bit of That...

It's been awhile since my last post! Not much in the way of big things going on right now, but just a few small projects here and there that have been on the back burner for awhile.

Sailor/Farmer returned and was welcomed with his own home brewing equipment as a Birthday/Early Father's Day gift.

If he was only amused by my various sustainability projects previously, he is now paying full attention and loving it! Here he is cooking up his first batch of wort in the pouring rain last weekend. He and "N", his buddy tried to rig up some tarps on the pergola, but I think still got pretty wet that evening!

Cooking the wort...

We didn't do any camping or other adventures this year on Memorial Day weekend, but managed to have a couple of good cookouts with friends and awesome weather.

It's not a party until the Army guys show up in the food... (you can tell I have boys!)

And the following night at L & N's house...Crab Boil! Crab, Shrimp, Clams, Potatoes, Corn, YUM! Food was incredible, kids had a blast, we will definitely be doing more of this the coming summer!

Here's Big "O" enjoying some of the cuisine that was obviously prepared in his honor. "Family BBQ means me too, right???!!!"

Thanks to the help of a friend and some adult beverages, my husband got motivated to finish replacing the fence around the yard, and we hope to build new gates the coming weekend. I got my garden shed all cleaned and organized and it is now officially all mine, as my husband has his own shed and is cleaning his out as well and will no longer have to sneak stuff into mine!

An update to my tomato situation: the problem was indeed bad compost I had delivered! I tested the soil and it showed virtually no nutrients...NONE! Apparently what we got was composted mulch of some sort, and not the rich compost I asked for! So, after amending the soil in those 3 beds, and a few emergency boosts in the form of a foliar spray of seaweed, we are now growing again! Tomatoes are not frozen anymore, and and the new growth is green! We will just be a few weeks behind everyone on the tomatoes! I am just thankful the mystery is solved and it wasn't mosaic virus or mutated Swine to Tomato Flu! Now I just hope the downpours and severe weather of the past month can stay away...(at least until hurricane season!)