Except for a Tuesday evening visit from an old friend now living on the other side of the country and his new(ish) wife, life has been quiet here. Lucky me; I like quiet – no, I need quiet.
Everyday constants are watering and spinning more Rechel roving. The round stock tank's tomatoes are looking happy, with little green fruit on three of the four. I'm not really sure what the ground cherries are supposed to do; the two little peppers in the middle are just sitting there, doing nothing.
I noticed that our white flowering plum has a lot of fruit on it this year. When ripe these are good-sized and very tasty, but there have never been many of them. This year, I think I'll get a ladder out and harvest them when the time comes. Without a garden proper, I'm more motivated than usual to utilize as much of our tree fruit as I can. I defrosted our 'fruit freezer' this week, sad at our dwindling supply of caneberries and strawberries that we've grown in the past. We'll buy and freeze peaches as usual, and I might try freezing our Brooks prunes in the same way. I still have canned spiced prunes and prune sauce in the pantry, and dehydrated prunes in the freezer.
One of our neighbors shared a bounty of small, tender zucchini with us this week. Then they left for 10 days, and I have permission to go over and pick whatever I want; there will be lots more zucchini and some cucumbers in our near future. Monday is supposed to be the coolest day of the foreseeable future, so that would be a good time to use the oven to bake off some muffins, cakes and burgers to store in the freezer. I still have some rhubarb from that same neighbor, so I should bake off some rhubarb goodies, too.
10 comments:
Your summer days sound like ours. (Not my favorite time of year!) But you're growing things look really good, and that's a blessing.
I'm happy for what I have, Leigh; there's no point in dwelling on what has been lost through lack of help. From what you've posted, you get more rain in at least some of the summer months than we do, but you have more humidity, too. That would make the heat worse!
Everything looks good. I love my water trough planters. Mine aren’t like yours but 60 gallon plastic that became popular for awhile years ago. I inherited them when I moved in. They no longer held water but worked great planters. How are your sheep faring in this warm weather? Goatldi
Sue, the sheep are coping; they all have shade, ventilation, water, and hay.
I wish I felt confident to can fruit . . . but I don't, so I usually make one annual trip to Amish country in Indiana to stock up on the stuff I really like. Temps have cooled back down a bit here and we've had more rain, but it's always dramatic rain with thunderstorms; lightning; and recently, unseasonable tornadoes (thankfully north of me although my house alarm went off multiple times since I was in the warning area). Zucchini!! Yum! I think the old James Beard recipe for zucchini bread is still the best. :-)
You're hot, hot, hot and we're still having a cool summer. (I may regret saying that as August comes on.) Seriously though, some of my warm weather crops like pickling cukes, slicing cukes, beans, pumpkins, etc. are doing nothing. :o( Our night time temps are still in the high 40s and low 50s. Lovely sleeping temps but we don't seem to be experiencing global warming here.
I love your stock tank garden! What a great way to have a garden without having a garden, old style. Super! Tomatoes are heavy feeders. Are you feeding them manure tea or using something like Miracle Grow? Please keep us posted on your progress. I think there are LOTS of people who could do this but who have 'signed off' on gardening because the old ways were just too much. Hooray for you.
Cheers
I always enjoy reading (and re-reading!) your posts.
Your garden containers are really neat! I get a chuckle out of the two my younger daughter has in front of their house in Idaho. One is a large oval watering trough, the other is an old bathtub. She had just got them all planted earlier, when a hailstorm went through, and killed most of her flowers and veggies. So she had to buy new plants and start again.
Take care!
We have a watering trough for our zinnias... I love your round one! It'd probably last 'way longer than our wine barrels.
I love that you're spinning your own wool; it's so satisfying, isn't it!
A, that's the way I feel about pressure canning; water bath canning (for fruit) isn't any harder to me than cooking. I have recipes using zucchini that I like far better than zucchini bread, but I did look up Jamees Beard's recipe out of curiosity since you mentioned it.
Mama Pea, I need all the help I can get for a good night's sleep, so if I had to choose – well, I'd get my vegetables elsewhere!
Advice received, Tim; I'll start feeding my tomatoes! I've always said EVERYone can grow some of their own food; this year I'm having put up or shut up.
Hail can take out gardens wherevere they are planted, Jeanne; so sorry your daughter had such a set-back! I don't think we've ever had damaging hail here, unlike the Midwest where we used to live.
I figure it's a good way to utilize the leaky thing, Mokihana! And yes, it IS satisfying to spin my own wool. A desire to do that is the reason I learned to spin in the first place. 😊
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