Catching up . . . again

It was wet and cool yesterday; I'll take credit because I worked hard on watering the garden on a warm Wednesday. ;-)  The heat is coming back; we may break records this weekend. The garden should like that, too – the gardener, not so much.

Garden hits and misses so far. The snap peas, onions, and turnips are looking great. My cucurbits are not germinating well; they need more water. The green bush beans I planted later are coming up, but not a single one of the saved purple bush bean seeds has sprouted. :-(  I bought some heirloom bush beans (Black Valentine) and will replant that row. I also bought two 'Purple Beauty' sweet pepper plants, two more tomato plants (Sungold and another Ace), three kinds of basil, a tray of Chioggia beets and a tray of kale. The peppers and tomatoes are planted; once the rest is, I need to take a new photo and label it so I can keep everything straight.

As for fruit, it's going to be a great year for apples and prunes, and a good year for cherries and pears.

Brian officially completed 8th grade – and probably his homeschooling years – this week when he took his last two finals. He's going to work with Rick this summer, along with continuing his violin and getting some tutoring in algebra. I'm looking forward to having more time to utilize and preserve the food we're growing, among other things . . . some of them may even be fun!      ;-)

Our first horse-camping trip of the season was just about perfect – after an automotive scare on the way. I shared a lot of photos already on Instagram and on my horse blog. For this blog I made some collages (which you can click to biggify) so you wouldn't have to wade through a ton of files. Hope you enjoy them!

That's it for now from . . .